Indonesia initially succeeded with its player naturalization policy

Honestly speaking, in the match against the Vietnamese team in the second leg at My Dinh Stadium on March 26.3, the naturalized Indonesian players played very professionally, strictly following the instructions set out by the coaching staff. They are ready to use tricks to prevent attacks from Vietnamese players. This not only reduces the pace of attack but also causes inhibition for the home team players. In attack, striker Oratmangoen played very poised and handled the ball accurately. The Indonesian team's 2-0 score by Oratmangoen in the first half had a very similar shot angle to the shot Tien Linh of the Vietnamese team missed a chance not long after. If Oratmangoen's left-footed shot easily beat goalkeeper Nguyen Filip, Tien Linh's powerful left-footed shot missed the goal quite far. That is the difference between a striker playing for Fortuna Sittard Club in the Dutch National Championship and a striker playing in the V-League.

In the opening goal, midfielder Jay Idzes, playing for Venezia FC in Italy's Serie B, used his outstanding height (1,91 m) to defeat the defense and goalkeeper Nguyen Filip of the Vietnamese team. Not to mention midfielder Ivar Jenner (1,88 m tall) could not go to Vietnam for the second leg because of fever. Jenner comes from Ajax's training academy, played for the Dutch U.15 team and currently plays for Utrecht Club in the Dutch National Championship. In addition, in the hands of Mr. Shin Tae-yong, there is also Thom Haye, a player currently playing for SC Heerenveen - Doan Van Hau's former club and valued by Transfermarkt at 3 million euros (more than 80 billion VND). In particular, Haye and Sandy Walsh (another naturalized Indonesian player) were in the Dutch squad that won the 17 European U.2012 Championship.

One thing that is easy to see is that although it also uses the policy of naturalizing players like many countries in the region such as the Philippines, Singapore, and Malaysia have done, Indonesia's approach is quite different. First, they do not naturalize players who do not have Indonesian roots, meaning that the player must have half the blood of this country. This is very different from what Singapore and Malaysia did before when they only naturalized foreign players. Second, the naturalized players are all very young, most are only 20 - 24 years old, except for midfielder Thom Haye (29 years old). Third, the number of naturalized players all play in high-ranking tournaments in Europe, from the Dutch National Championship to Serie B in Italy or the Championship (second place in England).

With these quality players, and a group of talented domestic players brought up from the youth ranks such as Marselino, Witan..., coach Shin Tae-yong can now think of bigger and longer-term ambitions with Indonesian football.