Easier access to SEA Games gold medal?

Lineups with and without naturalized players

In the third qualifying round of the 2026 World Cup in Asia, the Indonesian team currently has 6 points in Group C, equal to Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and China, only 1 point behind the second-placed team Australia. Indonesia has a great opportunity to qualify for the World Cup finals if they rank above the two giants of Asian football, Australia and Saudi Arabia, to take second place in this group at the end of the third qualifying round.

Indonesian youth team does not use naturalized players, they immediately weaken

The current achievements of the Indonesian team come from the fact that they have a large number of naturalized players of European origin (especially players born in the Netherlands). With this squad, Indonesia even caused a big surprise when they defeated Saudi Arabia 2-0 and drew 0-0 with Australia last year.

On the contrary, the U.20 Indonesia team was eliminated very early, after only 2 losses in the group stage of the 2025 U.20 Asian Cup. The dream of qualifying for the U.20 World Cup finals this year of the young team of the archipelago country also officially went up in smoke after this defeat of the U.20 Indonesia team.

The difference is that U.20 Indonesia at the U.20 Asian tournament does not have any naturalized players. Without foreign players in the squad, Indonesian football returns to the level of… Southeast Asia.

Many lessons for Southeast Asian football

This is the reality that Indonesian newspaper Suara exclaimed: "U.20 Indonesia suffered irreparable defeats against Iran and Uzbekistan. These defeats reflect that representatives of Southeast Asian football, including Indonesian football, are still quite backward compared to the group of top teams in Asia."

If U.22 Indonesia (red shirt) attends SEA Games 33 without naturalized players, they are not stronger than the rest of Southeast Asia.

The newspaper also called on football teams in Southeast Asia to make changes to quickly improve quality, aiming to shorten the gap with the leading football teams in the continent.

Among the solutions mentioned, the use of naturalized players is only a temporary solution, not a long-term one. Because as seen, whenever there are no naturalized players in the squad, Indonesian football changes dramatically, almost returning to the starting line. The optimal solution proposed by the Indonesian media is to take advantage of the presence of naturalized players to stimulate competition among domestic players, forcing domestic players to also strive to improve themselves.

Once the quality of domestic players is improved, when the naturalized players leave, it is also the time when purely domestic players can take on their own roles in international tournaments, helping the country's football reach a new level of quality, even without naturalized players. This is also a general experience for football in Southeast Asia. The key to improving the quality of players is still to do a good job of youth training. Naturalized players are a catalyst to help domestic players have the motivation to compete, have a direction to strive for, but naturalized players are not a long-term solution.

The fact that the Indonesian U.20 team is returned to the Southeast Asian level without any naturalized players also reflects that the race for the gold medal in the men's football event of the 33rd SEA Games will be very fair. At that time, there is no way that the Indonesian men's football team at the SEA Games will be much stronger than the rest, because the Indonesian men's football team participating in the Southeast Asian Games also does not use naturalized players as the core.

Source: https://thanhnien.vn/u22-viet-nam-dau-indonesia-khong-cau-thu-nhap-tich-tiep-can-de-hon-hcv-sea-games-185250218134459184.htm