{"id":215403,"date":"2025-10-10T23:14:20","date_gmt":"2025-10-10T23:14:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/215403\/"},"modified":"2025-10-10T23:14:20","modified_gmt":"2025-10-10T23:14:20","slug":"arsenal-21yo-turns-down-international-call-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/215403\/","title":{"rendered":"Arsenal 21yo turns down international call-up"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> Arsenal winger Charles Sagoe Jr. was called up by Liberia for their World Cup qualifiers this month, but he turned down the opportunity.<img decoding=\"async\" width=\"720\" height=\"934\" loading=\"lazy\"  src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/504293444_18518993881045454_8044043352573655659_n.jpg\" alt=\"Charles Sagoe Jr. with Arsenal (Photo via Sagoe Jr. on Instagram)\" class=\"wp-image-335613\" title=\"Arsenal 21yo turns down international call-up 2\" \/>Photo via Sagoe Jr. on Instagram<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/charles_watts\/status\/1975819065345130526\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Charles Watts<\/a> reports that <a href=\"https:\/\/dailycannon.com\/tag\/charles-sagoe-jr\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Charles Sagoe Jr.<\/a> received a call-up from Liberia for their World Cup qualifiers against Namibia and Equatorial Guinea over the ongoing international break, but the player decided not to accept the call.<\/p>\n<p>Sagoe Jr. has reportedly informed the Liberia Football Association that he wants to take some time before making a decision on his international future.<\/p>\n<p>Though the player qualifies for Liberia through his mother, he\u2019s also eligible for Ghana, and Watts reports that Ghana national team staff are monitoring his progress.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"648\" height=\"480\" loading=\"lazy\"  src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Sagoe-Jr.png\" alt=\"Charles Sagoe Jr involved in first-team training with Arsenal (Photo by Stuart MacFarlane\/Arsenal FC via Getty Images)\" class=\"wp-image-285244\" title=\"Arsenal 21yo turns down international call-up 3\" \/>Photo by Stuart MacFarlane\/Arsenal FC via Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>Given Sagoe Jr. was born and raised in England, he\u2019d also be eligible to represent the Three Lions. Whilst he was appreciative of the offer from Liberia, he\u2019s reluctant to commit at this stage.<\/p>\n<p>International allegiance is always tricky for players with multiple options. Even taking the emotion out of it, there\u2019s still a balancing act between playing for a country where you\u2019re much more likely to get minutes and playing for a country that\u2019s more likely to be successful.<\/p>\n<p>England are the fourth-ranked country in the current FIFA rankings, with Ghana 75th and Liberia 144th. England are probably the most likely to compete for the biggest trophies, but they\u2019re also the least likely to call Sagoe Jr. up.<\/p>\n<p>By contrast, Sagoe Jr. evidently already has the opportunity to play for Liberia, but the country only have two AFCON appearances and zero World Cup appearances to their name.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"803\" loading=\"lazy\"  src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Sagoe-Jr-Arsenal-training-1024x803.png\" alt=\"Charles Sagoe Jr. in first-team training with Arsenal (Photo via Arsenal.com)\" class=\"wp-image-285989\" title=\"Arsenal 21yo turns down international call-up 4\" \/>Photo via Arsenal.com<\/p>\n<p>Then you have to add the emotions back in. For example, maybe Ghana makes the most sense, as the country are more likely to call up Sagoe Jr. than England, and they\u2019re more likely to play at a major tournament than Liberia. But if the player feels more English, perhaps he\u2019d rather wait.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a tough choice, and it makes sense that the player would want to take his  time making it.<\/p>\n<p>Sagoe Jr. has scored and assisted six goals in seven appearances for the Arsenal u21s this season.<\/p>\n<p>Related Posts<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Arsenal winger Charles Sagoe Jr. was called up by Liberia for their World Cup qualifiers this month, but&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":215404,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[122142,9333,24808,122143,403,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-215403","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-soccer","8":"tag-charles-sagoe-jr","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-ghana","11":"tag-liberia","12":"tag-soccer","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215403"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215403\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/215404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}