If you do it, do it resolutely.

Preparing for the match against Vietnam in the 2027 Asian Cup qualifiers, the Malaysian team registered 17 naturalized players, including players of non-Malaysian origin, many of whom were only naturalized in 2025. This major change makes assessments of Malaysia's ability based on data from previous matches no longer accurate.

According to the assessment of the Vietnam national team coach Kim Sang-sik, the team's current opponent will be stronger than the ASEAN Cup 2024 held earlier this year and could be even stronger when the two teams meet again in the second leg in March next year as the Malaysian football player naturalization policy implemented since 2018 has become increasingly stronger. The trend of naturalizing players is completely changing Southeast Asian football. Countries with weak football such as Laos, Cambodia, and Timor Leste, which were previously not interested, now have nearly 50% of their national teams being naturalized.

Singapore, which abandoned naturalization after winning the Southeast Asian championship three times, has now returned to recruiting players who were not born in Singapore. As for Indonesia, the miracle of reaching the fourth round of the 2026 World Cup qualifiers is considered the result of a squad with a majority of players born and raised in the Netherlands but with Indonesian blood.

The trend of naturalizing players is not unfamiliar to Vietnamese football. We have been using players of foreign origin or overseas Vietnamese, in which the case of Nguyen Xuan Son at the ASEAN Cup 2024 showed immediate effectiveness. Currently, there are almost no restrictions on adding naturalized players to the national team, but the implementation process is still very slow, even somewhat passive. The number of players of Vietnamese origin returning to the country for "trials" is mainly in the U-teams but their quality is not high, making it difficult to integrate. Meanwhile, the number of foreign players playing in the V-League is not much, not meeting FIFA's 5-year residence and work requirement; also not many people are naturalized as Vietnamese at a young age. In other words, the current source of naturalized players, including overseas Vietnamese, cannot be compared with other countries in the region.

Vietnamese football certainly cannot stay out of the naturalization trend. Passively waiting for overseas talents to choose Vietnamese nationality through family relationships will lead to the situation of "those who return are not good, and those who are good cannot return yet". Instead, there needs to be a team to search for talent through organizations and overseas Vietnamese communities, proactively evaluate the ability of young players to monitor their development, and then have a convincing and motivating roadmap. Overseas football talents always have many options to play for national teams, especially where they live and are trained.

The reality is that currently, Coach Kim Sang-sik can hardly choose anything from domestic football, and cannot trust young players. In the short term, we must be bolder and more decisive in finding sources of players. Without a clear strategy, it is difficult to get the best people, and the slower we are, the more we will fall behind in results.

DANG LINH

Source: https://www.sggp.org.vn/da-lam-phai-quyet-liet-post798494.html