Quote Originally Posted by Pedro de la Rosa View Post
There's 5 in that side, Ward, Roberts, Rodon, Davies and Wilson. 12 of the current squad are welsh born, and that's not including Ramsey and Bale. Most of them have played Victory Shield football too, it's not as if we've found them from nowhere. Thomas, Ampadu, Smith and T. Roberts were part of the side that beat England in 2014.
That’s exactly my point. There has always been a majority welsh-born team.

The FAW has obviously gone big on finding foreign born young dual nationality players in the last few years. I think it’s a dangerous tactic for the long term.

For one, it means there is something wrong with scouting, promoting football or developing welsh footballers in the LoW or cardiff/swansea systems.

I think we’ll eventually end up suffering from this strategy due to the “Michael Owen” effect.
Anyone who is of obvious world class talent will be snapped up by england lured by the chance to become stars at biannual international competitions, especially in a world where footballers seem to be getting more and more individualistic. This in fact is one of the things I love about our new stock of foreign born players. They seem to have values that go beyond personal gain.

Even so, I think it’s something to be careful of and we shouldn’t be naive enough to think this calibre of player will always choose Wales. We need to carry on improving the system from within the country so the two approaches can complement eachother.