Rafael Struick is a rare naturalized player of U22 Indonesia who is praised - Photo: BOLA
"The U22 Indonesian players were humiliated, their performance was too poor," Bola newspaper headlined on the evening of December 8, expressing anger. The newspaper then pointed out the problem was the poor performance of the team's five naturalized stars.
At the 33rd SEA Games, the Indonesian men's football team brought 5 naturalized players to the tournament, promising to successfully defend the championship. They are also considered the top candidate for the championship.
But then most of the naturalized players did not play well in this match. Among them, national team star Rafael Struick was the rare one to be praised.
"Struick's dribbling often caused trouble for the Philippine defense, before he was substituted to make way for Frengky Missa," Bola commented.
Nearly 1m90 tall striker Mauro Zijlstra was criticized.
"Zijlstra doesn't have many explosive attacks. He likes to wait for crosses from both wings, but is slow to penetrate the opponent's defense," Bola commented.
But the most criticized is probably captain Ivan Jenner - who also played many times for the Indonesian national team like Struick.
"Jenner didn't contribute much in this match. He even had a dangerous tackle and luckily the referee didn't show him a red card," Bola wrote.
The loss to the Philippines made the Indonesian media extremely disappointed, because this is the U22 generation that the archipelago's football has high expectations for.
The failure in the 2026 World Cup qualifiers has made Indonesia focus on youth development, instead of relying too much on naturalization. And the current crop of young players are considered to be the core for them to compete in the World Cup qualifiers 4 years later.
Source: https://tuoitre.vn/bao-indonesia-tuc-gian-che-bai-cau-thu-nhap-tich-het-loi-20251208222017579.htm
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