Canada national team boss Jesse Marsch has invited Manchester United youngster Gabriele Biancheri to train with the squad, in a bid to convince him to ditch Wales for them.
The Cardiff-born Biancheri has been a regular goalscorer for United’s youth teams and has even trained with the senior set-up under Ruben Amorim.
He has enjoyed another prolific season, bagging an impressive 21 goals in 35 appearances. His performances have drawn attention to him and he was recently named in the Wales first team for their training camp in Spain this week ahead of next month’s World Cup qualifiers against Liechtenstein and Belgium
Biancheri has already been capped by Wales from Under-16 to Under-19 levels.
But his future with Wales has been thrown into serious doubt after Canada invited him to join their squad for upcoming friendlies vs. Ukraine and Ivory Coast.
The 18-year-old striker is eligible to line up for Wales, Canada (through his mother) and Italy (through his father).
According to The Athletic, there is a strong likelihood that Canada’s assistant coach, Ewan Sharp – who previously worked at United – has been keeping tabs on Biancheri and his exploits at club level.
Canada possess a major advantage in their efforts to lure Biancheri to their ranks – the guarantee of playing in the 2026 World Cup.
Earlier this week, Marsch said about the prospect of dual nationals like Biancheri joining Canada, “There are other discussions that have been had, visits that have been had, I’d say that a lot of them have gone really well.”
“It’s a case-by-case basis, (looking at) each person’s family history and career trajectory and what it would mean to be part of the Canadian national team versus another national team. It all means something different. I think one of the keys is this team is really unified and really strong together, and they’re very proud to represent Canada and what it means to be Canadian and what it means to play for the Canadian national team.”
“And so for me, on all of these discussions that’s the first line: What does this mean to you? How do you feel about playing for Canada? How do you feel about representing the nation and and the flag?”
“I know it as a foreigner that it’s meant a lot to me, and the responsibility I feel to make sure that in all ways, that everything we do is exactly a perfect representation of what that means to be Canadian, especially in the current political climate.”
It will be interesting to see how Biancheri responds and which option he chooses to pursue.
Featured image Lewis Storey via Getty Images
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Derick Kinoti
Derick Kinoti is a football writer at The Peoples Person who has covered Manchester United and the game extensively for many years. He is a keen analyst with expertise in SEO and journalism standards. Derick is convinced Wayne Rooney is the true GOAT and won’t hear otherwise!
