An interesting suggestion. However, because some leagues are vasty larger than others (e.g. Thailand compared with any other nation) this could easily give the larger nations an extra advantage they don't need (beyond simply being larger) with their large pool of players to select from. For me, the "residency requirement" you propose is not enough imho. The player should (also) have come from a domestic club's academy or youth camp as well, suggesting that the player has a deeper connection to the nation than mere residency. In general, the player should probably have to be of a nationality that does not have a NT manager. This is one way to deal with the poor selection skills of bot managers, but I'd rather fill all or most NT spots with living managers, even if they must be premium members.
Thus for a foreign player to be selected in a new NT, I would envision that he would need to meet all of the following requirements:
- he must have come from an acaemy or youth camp belonging to a club in the new nation.
- he must have resided in the new nation for ~5 seasons/years minimum after reaching age 18 (thus the player would have to be age 23 or higher)
- he must have never appeared for his main NT (youth NT does not count)
- he must come from a nation with a bot NT manager (e.g. Canadian player playing in Italy)
However, I do not see any problem with allowing foreign youth players (age <22) in a nation to be selected for its u21 NT provided he has never been capped by his main NT. However, the player should not be able to play for multiple different NTs in a given season.
Again, it's a nice idea, but I wonder if it might be too difficult to implement in the game with all these variables and restrictions, at least in the near term. Maybe by season 20......