Yet another issue with international football on FM23.
Ahmed Sulaiman Al-Junaibi is a promising young defender at Celta who was born in the United Arab Emirates but also has Spanish second nationality. He makes his senior debut for the UAE aged 17, and as of September 2035, he has four caps.
Within the next three months, he wins another three caps for the UAE... but then suddenly switches allegiance to play for Spain Under-21s. His international debut against Tajikistan has also disappeared completely from his record.
Al-Junaibi has played in three competitive matches for the UAE (vs Malaysia, Cambodia and Japan), which means he is one more competitive cap away from having to declare for the UAE. He switches to Spain between the October and November international breaks, and wins his first Spain Under-21s cap in November.
Fast forward over a decade, and here's how Al-Junaibi looks now. He is one of the best right-backs in world football, having had several years of top-flight experience with Frankfurt, Valencia and now Juventus.
However, despite his consistently strong performances for Juventus (average rating 7.21 in 26 Serie A games in the 2046/2047 season), he has not been capped by Spain. In fairness, Spain's starting right-back is a regular starter for PSG.
He has also never switched back to the UAE, even though they have qualified for several Asian Cups and a World Cup over the past decade, and even though he would be by far the best player in the squad. The UAE's best right-back plays for Lyon but is frankly not as good as Al-Junaibi.
I have not continued the save beyond this point, but I am pretty confident Al-Junaibi will eventually be capped by Spain. In FM, international selection seems to be heavily biased towards reputation, and major national teams are incredibly slow to recognise good form.
But in real-life, surely he would have given up on Spain and switched back to the UAE - the country where he was born, and the country where his family comes from - by now? Why would any player waste over a decade of international football - and at a decent level too - waiting for a call-up from an elite national team that might never come? (I reported a similar issue before, with a striker who wasn't called up by Spain until he was in his 30s, even though he was eligible for Nigeria.)
I have uploaded save files from September 2035 (before the switch), December 2035 (after the switch), Decembers 2038, 2042 and 2046 (before the 2039, 2043 and 2047 Asian Cups) and March 2046 (before the 2046 World Cup). Please let me know if you need anything else.
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