Vietnam National Team: How to respond when the whole of Southeast Asia is naturalized?

1. The trend of naturalization or inviting players with foreign roots to play for national teams in the Southeast Asian region is of course not new.

However, the noisy and even campaign that many countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, most recently Cambodia... are pursuing has made football, once considered a lowland of the world, more exciting.

With what we are seeing, especially after Indonesia's success thanks to its policy of inviting players with roots to return, Southeast Asian football will certainly have national teams with more skin colors and ethnicities than ever before.

Indonesia uses many naturalized players, causing the whole of Southeast Asia to follow suit. Photo: SN

2. In 2024, if they had not suffered three defeats in the 2026 World Cup qualifiers and the Asian Cup against Indonesia under coach Troussier, perhaps everything would have been perfect for Vietnamese fans. Because at the end of the year, the red team won the ASEAN Cup under the command of Mr. Kim Sang Sik.

The defeats to Indonesia were analyzed a lot, such as Mr. Troussier's mistakes, the key players' poor performance, lack of ambition... However, what made fans feel indignant and dissatisfied was that the opponent used many naturalized players instead of "domestic" players like the Vietnam team.

It is understandable that Vietnamese fans are not convinced, because in reality, thanks to the Indonesian players, the team from the archipelago is truly different from themselves, just like when playing against the Vietnamese team before.

3. Facing the above trend and seeing certain effectiveness, the Vietnam team did not stay out of the game by naturalizing Rafaelson. The effectiveness came immediately, when thanks to the excellence of this striker, the ASEAN Cup championship became easier.

The Vietnamese team is not out of the game, but perhaps still has to pursue another path. Photo: SN

The success of the decision to naturalize and call Nguyen Xuan Son to the Vietnam national team has made fans excited, as well as waiting for new faces to conquer the next peak.

However, as a trend, it will only last for a short time and will also bring certain consequences (besides the effectiveness), so Vietnamese football must be alert and choose for itself a more solid path and foundation.

That path is nothing other than youth training, the field, the club, the players, the coach or the referee need to be more professional and large-scale, instead of being unstable like in the past.

If we rely on naturalized resources, we may only have a short-term success, while the risk of losing is very long. Look at Singapore - the first national team to follow the path of upgrading with naturalized players, where it stands in Southeast Asia at this time.

Vietnamnet.vn

Source: https://vietnamnet.vn/tuyen-viet-nam-ung-xu-the-nao-khi-ca-dong-nam-a-nhap-tich-2370807.html