Alfie Jones (15) and his Canadian teammates stand for their national anthem before a friendly match between Canada and Venezuela at Chase Stadium in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. on Tuesday.

He is not the first soccer player to fly a flag of convenience in the run up to the World Cup, nor is he the only foreign-born player on Canada’s national soccer team.

But few will have left it so close to their first match for Canada to take the citizenship oath.

The Canadian national soccer team’s newest recruit is Alfie Jones, a Bristol-born defender who plays for second-tier English team Middlesborough.

On Monday he took the citizenship oath in time to play for Canada on Tuesday in a pre-World Cup friendly match against Venezuela.

Jones’s application for Canadian citizenship – made possible because

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