I knew in my heart it was inevitable, so I cannot say I was surprised when it was announced this week that Matt McKay had signed a loan deal with Changchun Yatai in the Chinese Superleague.

It seems de rigueur for A-League players to make the move to Asian clubs this season and with Queensland reaching the finals series two years in a row it was only a matter of time before some of our best were cherry picked by a club in a neighbouring league.

In the story that ran on FourFourTwo earlier this week, McKay claimed he had agreed to the loan in order to improve his chances of national team selection and intended to return to Queensland next season.

Personally, I doubt that following the cash overseas can really improve your chances of national team selection all that significantly. It seems that, thanks to our national team coach's stupid comments, players are now choosing an overseas league - any league as long as it isn't the A-League - in the belief they will receive a cap for doing so.

When solid but unspectacular players like Queensland's Michael Zullo and Mitch Nichols can gain Socceroo caps without playing in some of Europe's and Asia's more underwhelming corners, I really begin to wonder who is encouraging this nonsensical, abandon-ship mentality.

Not everything overseas is as rosy as some would make it out to be. There have been a few former Roar players who have taken the great overseas gamble and appear to have lost. While a few years back they were considered future Socceroo possibilities they are now only ever discussed on FourFourTwo's Overseas Aussies feature.

Perhaps most prominent on that list would be Dario Vidosic. He was already on the way to A-League superstar status when he decided to move to Europe a few seasons back. Now plying his trade in the reserves for FC Nuremburg he certainly must be considered by Pim Verbeek sometime soon.

After all, according to Verbeek, reserves football in Germany is supposedly so much superior to the A-League, even if you are only training. Will Verbeek put his money where his mouth is and select Vidosic then? I sincerely doubt it.

Then there is David Williams who only made two cameo appearances for Queensland but whom died-in-the-wool fans still consider one of their own. He made quite an impression when he first arrived in Denmark but has recently found himself out of favour.

One bench appearance for an understrength Socceroos squad against China and he has apparently fallen completely off the radar. He may not be playing, but at least when he is not playing, Williams is not playing for the first team. Yet, that still is not enough for Mr Verbeek.

You can add to those two previous national youth team representatives Spase Dilevski and Michael Baird who found that by going to Romanian team FC Universitatea Craiova they are probably even further from full national team honours than they were while in Australia, even when they actually are playing on a regular basis.

Perhaps in favour of most of these players is that they are still young. A process of rejuvenation will occur following the 2010 World Cup and their opportunity may yet come. However they may have already have missed their opportunity with a host of young A-Leaguers being thrown in to the national team deep end over the past month or so.

By staying in the A-League at least two of the players I have cited would have walked in to Verbeek's A-League-based Asian Cup Qualifiers squad. They may even have done enough to be considered for the full strength squad.

Now they have to set the world alight to even be noticed by the national team manager. In my opinion, other A-League players who are considering the move overseas should be urged to keep that in mind. Our very own Matt McKay included.