West Ham United's England striker Carlton Cole admits he explored the prospect of playing for Nigeria.
"My dad is from Nigeria and I went to play in a charity game for Jay-Jay Okocha, who was opening a stadium in Enugu," he said. "It was a muck-about really, but one of the coaches asked me if I'd be interested in playing for Nigeria and I said yeah because I didn't think I had a chance of playing for England.
"I thought I'd have a go, but it turned out that I couldn't play because I had already played for England Under-21s. These things happen for a reason and I'm just fortunate to get another chance."