The news this week that Kawasaki Frontale's Brazilian striker Juninho hopes to gain Japanese citizenship and play for the national team will not have been music to FIFA president Sepp Blatter's ears.
Exasperated at seeing Brazil-born players naturalized and assimilated into national teams around the world, Blatter launched an angry tirade last year against the "invaders" jeopardizing the international game.
"If we don't take care about the invaders from Brazil," he said, "then at the next World Cups, in 2014 and 2018, out of the 32 teams you will still have national teams, but we will have 16 full of Brazilian players."