The Canadian Soccer Association may have been mistaken that David Wagner had played for the German national team in qualifying for the World Youth Championship.
CSA hopes to have FIFA overturn the U.S. 3-0 win over Canada March 16 and have it awarded a 3-0 forfeit victory.
According to various press reports, the CSA’s claim is apparently based on games Germany played for qualifying for the 1989 Under-20 World Cup in Saudi Arabia. These games were played as part of the UEFA U-18 competition in 1987 and 1988. Since Germany did not win its group, it did not advance to the finals of the U-18 tournament, which served as final qualifying for Saudi Arabia ’89.
A search of the German magazine Kicker and French magazine France Football for qualifying games played in 1987 and 1988 revealed that a Wagner started for Germany against France twice and Switzerland once, but it could not have been David Wagner.
(1) The Wagner in question was listed as a U. Wagner.
(2) This Wagner was affiliated with Schalke 04. David Wagner plays for Schalke now, but he did not join it until 1995. He previously played for SV Geinsheim, Eintract Frankfurt and Mainz.
(3) David Wagner was born Oct. 19, 1971. It is unlikely that Berti Vogts, the German U-18 coach at the time, would have ever picked a player as young as Wagner for the team. (He would have just turned 16 when qualifying started.)
Wagner would have been eligible for the German U-18 team that took part in qualifying for the 1991 U-20 World Cup in Portugal. A review of Germany’s qualifying matches — it again did not reach the final round of qualifying —
was incomplete, though Wagner did not play in any of the matches for with lineups were available.
U.S. Soccer officials have been quoted as saying that they believed an investigation would find David Wagner eligible.
— Paul Kennedy, Managing Editor