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Diego Costa Turns Back On Brazil In Favour Of Spain

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Brazilian born Diego Costa has turned his back on his birth country in favour of playing for Spain, what does this mean for England?

Gonzalo Arroyo Moreno

You may be asking yourself why we are covering this. We are not a Brazilian blog, nor are we a Spanish blog. However it's important to note that the Brazilian born Diego Costa has decided at age 25 to turn his back on his birth place and instead play for Spain, a country he has played his domestic football in since 2007.

So lets put this in perspective. Diego Costa was born in 1988, and did not play in Spain until 2007. Which means he was 19 when he made the move to Spain, now he has decided to play for Spain instead of Brazil who he represented earlier this year in two friendlies.

There has been little fuss regarding this decision in Spain. That's interesting.

Adnan Januzaj moved to Manchester United in 2011, when he was just 16 years old, three years younger than Costa. However as far as some people are concerned, he was too old to really be considered for selection by the English football team. There seems to be some double-standards in here somewhere.

The rules regarding his eligibility are very confusing. According to the home nations agreement, a player must partake in 5 years of education in England prior to their 18th birthday to be eligible. So this would mean, regardless of Adnan's decision, he would be unable to play for England. However I'm sure he wanted to play for England, the FA would find a loophole somewhere to enable him to do so.