Four pairs of brothers will compete in the World Cup, all for different countries, in a reflection of how migration around the world has impacted football.
Desire Doué and her older brother Guela were born in France, but while PSG (Paris Saint-Germain) star Desire plays for Les Bleus, Guela is an attacking full-back for Ivory Coast, their father’s home country.
The Williams brothers, Iñaki and Nico, were born in the Basque Country. Nico, 23, was named player of the match when Spain beat England in the European Championship final two years ago.
Older brother Iñaki, 31, also played once for Spain, but only in a friendly, which did not prevent him from switching teams to Ghana, the country from where his parents emigrated.
Also in the Ghana squad is Dutch-born defender Derrick Luckassen, 30, who was called up at the last minute for the World Cup as a replacement for an injured player and joins his half-brother Brian Brobbey in the tournament.
Brobbey, 24, is a reserve striker for the Netherlands, arriving at the tournament in Canada, Mexico and the United States after a good second half of the Premier League season with Sunderland. They have the same mother but different fathers.
Australia have called up Scottish-born defender Harry Souttar, 27, while his brother John, two years older, will play for Scotland. They were born in Aberdeen, but their mother is Australian, and Harry switched teams seven years ago after being called up to the Scottish youth squad.
In the initial phase of the tournament, there are no scheduled clashes between any of the brothers, but last week, Desire watched from the stands as Guela scored a goal in the clash between Ivory Coast and France, which ended 2-1 for the Ivorians.
BROTHERS PROVOKED EACH OTHER BEFORE THE MATCH
“Of course, we teased a little bit before the match,” Guela told reporters afterwards. “At the end of the day, we are family and we are so happy for each other.”
The two brothers, born in Angers in northwest France, took their first steps together at Stade Rennais, but Guela, who is three years older, was overshadowed by his younger brother’s talent, which led him to PSG and two successive Champions League titles.
Migration to Europe in recent decades has opened up a large pool of talent for African teams, who turn to the ranks of the diaspora in search of players. World Cup participants such as Algeria, Cape Verde, Democratic Republic of Congo, Morocco, Senegal and Tunisia have more European-born players on their 26-man squads than those born in their own countries.
There has only been one case of brothers facing each other at the World Cup, and it happened in two consecutive tournaments.
Jerome Boateng was in Germany’s defense against his older half-brother Kevin-Prince, who wore the Ghana shirt, in a 1-0 victory for the Germans in Johannesburg.
Four years later, the pair were on opposite sides again in Fortaleza when the group stage game ended 2-2. “Of course, it was something special, but in some ways it was also different four years later,” said Jerome Boateng.
“In 2010, it was really something new, something extraordinary. I don’t want to say it became common – because a World Cup is never common. But we also played against each other several times in the Bundesliga,” he added.
