Jermaine Jones has told ESPN that playing international soccer for USA isn’t about where you come from – but more about what’s in your heart.

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Jones spoke after Tim Howard had given an interview to USA Today where he appeared to question the commitment of national team players born or brought up overseas. Howard, who raised eyebrows with his remarks, later backtracked on those claims and insisted he wasn’t singling out dual nationals for criticism.

Jones, who was born in Germany and has 67 caps for USA, spent half a season alongside Howard at the Colorado Rapids before signing for the LA Galaxy on Wednesday. He said the subject of commitment and identity was a tricky one “where you have to be careful what you’re saying.”

The 35-year-old midfielder said: “With all the respect for Timmy, I feel it’s not if you’re half American or full-American. It’s more what you have in here [taps his chest].

“If you go on the field and you give everything for this country, then of course sometimes there’s a situation where you’re not playing good. But it’s normal. That can happen to anybody, and that’s what you have to understand.”

In the USA Today interview, Howard was critical of Jürgen Klinsmann, the former coach, for a allowing a sense of national pride to dip.

Howard said: “What I think [Bruce Arena] will add is this ability to truly believe in the shirt, and I think we lost that a little bit over the last couple of years. Klinsmann had a project to unearth talent around the world that had American roots. But having American roots doesn’t mean you are passionate about playing for that country.”

He continued: “I know there were players that came in that it didn’t matter as much to. If you get enough of those players, one or two can get found out, but if you get enough of those players you lose sight of what you are all about. While it was a good idea in theory, it had its flaws. Bruce will 100% get that back.”

Howard later rowed back from those comments, and insisted he wasn’t saying that foreign-born players lacked sufficient passion to play for USA. “It’s not exclusive to them because some of our dual nationals have been brilliant,” he said to ESPN. “Jermaine Jones has been a rock for our national team. He’s been one of the heartbeats. Fabian Johnson has been brilliant for us. So, no, that wasn’t aimed at any one person in particular.”

Klinsmann had called up a number of players who were born or brought up outside the US, including Jones, Fabian Johnson, John Brooks and Julian Green. Klinsmann was fired in November after a two losses in his first two games of World Cup qualifying, a 2-1 home defeat by Mexico and a 4-0 thumping in Costa Rica.

World Cup winner Abby Wambach is another high-profile soccer star to question the commitment of “foreign guys” – and Jones said he and others who grew up abroad were always the first target when things go wrong.

“Where everything goes wrong and we lost the first two games, we say maybe the German-Americans are the problem. But when we played the World Cup, I scored. [John] Brooks scored, and it’s: ‘Oh, the German-Americans are American boys.’

“We played two bad games [in qualifying], yes. That’s a fact. All the criticism that comes from outside, that’s good. That’s soccer. It has to be like that.

“But you have to see the bigger picture, and that’s the whole team. There’s not an American guy and a German-American. The whole team played bad, so that’s the fact. To put it on this guy or this guy, I think it’s not correct.”