Supporting your National Team

I was interested by a comment that Ben made in a thread in Euro 2008 section referring to the opinion that when supporting a team in international football you have no real choice as you do in supporting a club team, and that you are really bound to support the country where you are from. It is an opinion that personally i agree with but i was just wondering what you all thought about this topic? Is it ok to pick a country team to support or should you follow your own country?

You should follow your own country. You can root for another country, but you shouldn't follow another country.

I'm lucky, I have two countries to follow. It just sucks when they play against each other though.

Which two do you support smurfy?

USA and England?

I follow England aswell as Spain...As i have lived in Spain so lol

I'm not American, I just live here.

England and South Korea are my two countries.

It seems weird that you would support a nation other than your birth nation however if your birth nation is a particularly weak country (Andorra, Luxemborg etc..) then I too would pick a stronger nation to follow at competitions. That said it's your life so do as you please.

As long as you support your birth country, whether that be Luxembourg or Brazil, then it doesnt matter who else you follow.

I don't mean supporting your own country and following others i am talking about strictly supporting the one team.

Del Piero10 being Danish and pledging his allegiances to the Italians for example.

Really?

Where were you born? How come you have two nations? How long have you lived in America?

You should always follow your own country, if you have two, then your lucky
But i also feel that if your country is not in the big tournaments, like England now, then i will choose another country, at the moment i going for Holland or Spain.

Its your own choice obviously. Most people who have any sort of national pride will support their own country, not because theyre forced to but because they love their country.

There are exceptions..like Del Piero, I couldnt do it but if he supports Italy then so be it...

I'm half Korean (mom), was born in Incheon, Korea. Dad is English so I automatically got British citizenship when I was born. I've lived in America for almost 20 years, but have chosen not to take citizenship. Even if I do choose to take it in the future for other reasons, I still would never consider myself an American as I would only take it for business purposes.

Oh wow, i didn't know that.

So why don't you consider yourself American, or even support the national team? I bet you have an American accent.

Do you dislike the country?

I support Wales and Wales alone. I will pick a team to follow when Wales arent there which is all the time, but i dont support them i just follow them closer.

Yes.

I think that you should support your birth country really, or the country of which you have a strong background from. I think choosing a different country to support is different from choosing another club team to support.

And of course having two nationalities means you can choose, or just support both, which is why im rooting for Spain in the euro's

It's pretty much your honour to your national football team to support them and I've never even thought twice about supporting another country (although I am backing Spain for the Euro)
It should be definately up to you to choose but you should always support your own country.

I support whoever I want to support. I couldn't give two sh1ts what others think.

Ever since I was a kid watching the 1986 world cup I've followed Brazil, and I have done ever since - even when England played them in the 2002 world cup 1/4 final. It's about football, not nationality to me. We're not talking about war, we're talking about a football match.

So it's Brazil first then England second for me.

I will support Ireland as always.

But when they aren't in the competition, then I'll support the Nation that involves either my favourite Arsenal player, the most Arsenal players, or just the favourite all round team, or whoever is playing England.

Glory boy.