Naturalization of players is not something that can be achieved just by wanting to.

Mr. Tran Quoc Tuan - Chairman of VFF expressed: "If we do not take the right steps, the Vietnamese national team will become stronger but the domestic strength will inevitably weaken. The story that we need to think about is the motivation of domestic players, the training of local youth. After all, club development is still the core and sustainable factor of national football. We also need to consider the issue of national identity, pride and culture. Vietnamese football is persistently on a path, developing from internal strength, as well as if there is any, we will consolidate and supplement accordingly. Only then, on the one hand, the Vietnamese national team will become stronger but on the other hand, it will also create motivation for domestic football".

The VFF leadership's viewpoint is correct! Correct because a football foundation needs to be built on internal strength to develop, but Mr. Tuan said that naturalization should be done cautiously, not as loudly as Indonesia and Malaysia, is it reasonable and when they become stronger, will we catch up with them?

Football is now borderless with the Bosman ruling allowing players to freely transfer and play anywhere. Indonesians and Malaysians have an advantage over us as there are many players with origins living in Europe and America. The Dutch players playing for the Indonesian team are of very good quality, on par with Asia. Malaysia has just added naturalized players which is also very worrying and if they play well together for another year, this will be a powerful team in Asia.

VFF has repeatedly sought personnel from overseas Vietnamese players and has had initial success such as Nguyen Filip, Cao Pendant Quang Vinh and Brazilian-born player Xuan Son, but many other factors who have returned to Vietnam to try out for youth teams have not made an impression and quietly left. Recently, overseas Vietnamese striker Bui Alex, who is playing for Bohemians 2905 (Czech Republic) club, came to try out for U22 Vietnam, he said he is very eager to wear the national team shirt: "I understand that I have to try harder in the coming time and I believe that I will play better if I have more time".

VFF talks about developing internal strength and youth football, but will that be successful when young Vietnamese players are not trained in developed football backgrounds, mainly playing in First Division, Second Division and U17, U19, U21 tournaments... with little playing time, so when competing internationally, the achievements of the youth teams are not high.

With such a young team's strength, and the V.League tournament not yet having a voice in Asia, where can we get the human resources to compete with the strong development thanks to the open policy on naturalization of Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines... Is that caution a sign that the VFF is having a hard time finding a way out for men's football at the moment?

We are lacking big players like Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia to revive football, to launch a strong campaign to renew the national team. If we only build with the current internal strength, Vietnamese football will find it very difficult to compete in the region, let alone dream of the World Cup.

Tuan Ngoc

Source: https://baophapluat.vn/nhap-tich-cau-thu-khong-phai-cu-muon-la-duoc-post553344.html