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The Vietnamese women's team will face off against Indonesia's naturalized stars. Photo: VFF . |
The Indonesian women's team has just announced a list of 38 players preparing for the 2026 Women's Asian Cup qualifiers. Notably, there are 13 naturalized players, including 10 who are playing in European leagues and 3 who play in the US.
Prominent names include Iris de Rouw (Sparta Rotterdam), Emily Nahon, Felicia Victoria de Zeeuw (ADO The Hague), Isabel Kopp (Fortuna Sittard), Pauline van de Pol, Isabelle Nottett (Telstar), Isa Guusje Warps (RKVV Roosendaal), Estella Loupattij (SV Zulte Waregem, Belgium) and Sydney Sari Hopper (Tulsa FC, USA).
The 2026 Women's Asian Cup qualifiers will take place from June 29 to July 5. The Indonesian women's team's goal is to qualify for the finals. After that, the archipelago team will continue to participate in the 2025 AFF Women's Cup, held in Hanoi from August 6 to 19. In this tournament, Indonesia is in Group A with Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia. The presence of naturalized players in the Indonesian squad predicts that Group A will be a fierce competition for tickets to the semi-finals.
Indonesia’s strong reinforcements mean that coach Mai Duc Chung and his team cannot be complacent. In the past, the Indonesian women’s team was often ranked as a weak team in Southeast Asia. However, the wave of naturalization is helping them become an unpredictable unknown, especially when most of the new players have professional training backgrounds in Europe and the US.
According to the newly announced FIFA rankings, the Vietnamese women's team is ranked 37th in the world , 6th in Asia and first in Southeast Asia. However, at present, the Vietnamese women's team is in the process of generational transition. This means that maintaining the leading position in the region is no longer an easy task. Especially when the opponents have all made serious preparations and invested properly.
The Football Association of Indonesia (PSSI) is implementing a strategy to take advantage of human resources of Indonesian origin living abroad, especially in the Netherlands, where there is a large diaspora community. This is a similar direction to the Indonesian men's national team in recent years, when they continuously called up players of Indonesian origin with dual nationality from the Netherlands, Belgium or England.
The upgrade of the women's team shows the increasingly clear ambition of Indonesian football to achieve high results in Southeast Asia, advance to the continent and aim for the World Cup.
Source: https://znews.vn/den-luot-huynh-nhu-hai-yen-dau-dan-sao-nhap-tich-cua-indonesia-post1560803.html
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