After all, Galeño can still play for Portugal

Galen is living his biggest dream. He is one of the most prominent stars of FC Porto, and he excelled in the Champions League and was called up to the Brazilian national team. Although he chose Brazil, the player knows that there are still possibilities to represent the Portuguese national team.

According to Globo Esporte, Galeno, 26, will still be eligible to play for Portugal even if he participates in the matches against England and Spain. The principle of the argument is that these matches are friendly and do not exceed the maximum of three imposed by FIFA. The player and his managers have the same explanation.

In a regulation published in 2020, a player is still able to change federation as long as he does not play in more than two official matches in minor disputes (qualifiers and Nations League, for example). In this scenario, the 'Senor Champions' would remain eligible, for example, if Portugal called him up to participate in the next European Championship, in Germany.

“There are a few well-defined scenarios that allow a player to change the national team,” explains lawyer and FIFA specialist Felipe Amaral. “If the player is playing in an official competition for a major team, the player can only change country if he already has the citizenship of your new team at the time.” First Performance, if you were under 21 years of age at the time of your last performance in an official competition for the former team, in which you cannot play at senior level for more than three matches, and more than three years have passed since your last performance for the former team. In any case, these are very specific situations that are analyzed by FIFA, which allows or does not allow this exchange, which can only happen once per athlete,” he notes to Globo Esporte.