The next round of international matches began last week, as Malta's FIFA World Cup qualification group got underway with a home match against Finland.

The buildup to this match and to the next match in this international window against Poland was marked by an excitement as to what the national team would actually look like: Malta are under the leadership of a new coach, Emilio De Leo, so many were awaiting to see what selections and systems the new boss would utilise.

But before the selection came out, there was news of significance: Malta would have two new faces eligible to play in its traditional red shirt. 

These were James Carragher, a defender who plays with Wigan Athletic in England's third tier and who also happens to be the son of ex-England international and Liverpool stalwart Jamie Carragher, and Ilyas Chouaref, a winger who was one-time France U19 international and who plays in Switzerland's top division with Sion FC.

Both of these players had acquired Maltese citizenship through descendance - meaning that they have Maltese blood in their immediate family which made them eligible for a Maltese passport.  Them being granted citizenship meant that they became eligible to play for Malta.

The news was greeted with mixed reactions: many lauded the news, saying that these two players would no doubt bring an additional layer of quality which is necessary if Malta wishes to move forward on an international footballing level; others, however, were not as enthused.

The most brought up negative point was that these two players had no actual personal ties to Malta: one particular comment noted that the Maltese football team was now being filled with people who couldn't even speak Maltese.

Another argument was that these two players would be "taking the place" of "Maltese children" in the national team - with the general implication being that people such as Chouaref and Carragher are not as deserving of a national team berth than a player who was born and raised in Malta.

Malta has had an increase in recent years of foreign-born players coming into the national team.  Midfield lynchpin Teddy Teuma is the most high-profile example, but there are also players such as Dylan Scicluna, Jodi Jones, and Basil Tuma have all qualified for citizenship on the same basis.

Other internationals such as Enrico Pepe, born in Italy, and Gabriel Mentz, born in Brazil, were naturalised having spent several years playing domestically in Malta.

When it comes to international football, one needs to understand the context of it. Even the best national football teams include players who are eligible by ancestry.

For example, in this international window, Bournemouth defender Dean Huijsen debuted for Spain even though he was born in the Netherlands and both his parents are Dutch (his family relocated to Spain when he was five years old) and even though he represented the Netherlands at several youth levels.

Other major countries have similar instances: much of France's national team is of mixed heritage, several German stalwarts in the past have been of mixed heritage, and the same can also be said about Italy.

The point is that if Malta wants to move forward in the world of international football, it needs quality players.  The impact of the two new players in the squad for the match against Finland was undeniable: Malta may have lost, but it was the significantly better team, with Carragher solid at the back and Chouaref causing mayhem in the Finnish defence.

If Malta wants to move forward in football it needs to embrace a simple fact: it's the best 11 players who must play.  If local players aren't up to scratch, they need to get up to scratch and up their standard.  Only then can the local game improve.