Pires' father is from Minho, northern region of Portugal. His mother is from Spain. Robert speaks fluent portuguese. In Portugal he would like to play for Benfica, the portuguese club he most follows, mostly because of his cousin. He also stated he would like to face FC Porto in Das Antas for the Champions League (but looks like he won't accomplish that, maybe in the new Estádio do Dragão).
I'm glad he still remembers his roots, shows signs of being a very humble individual. Shame our FA missed out on securing him right on the youth ranks. If he had come to Portugal 10 years ago, thing would be different; when he was starting at Metz, summer of 1993, Benfica contacted him to replace departing João Pinto who was about to join Paulo Sousa and Pacheco leaving the Estádio da Luz for Sporting.
But about the subject of the thread, to get the English citizenship, Cudicini has got to live in England for 5 years. So, if he arrived in 1999 from Castel di Sangro (with 99/00 season already ongoing), he'll only be eligible for Sven Goran-Eriksson AFTER the EURO 2004. He was already called-up for the Italian NT. Once. But he didn't come off the bench, so he's still available to play for another country.
There was a case of a player, Dries Boussatta from AZ, now at a Nationwide Division 1 club, had 2 caps from Holland (back to the times when Frank Rijkaard was the coach) but they were made on friendly matches, so he put a process in FIFA so he could turn them null to play for Morocco. And he got just that.
