U23 Indonesia and Malaysia "show their true colors": The bitter fruit of massive naturalization

(Dan Tri) - The fact that U23 Indonesia and U23 Malaysia both failed to qualify for the U23 Asian Cup shows that youth football in these two countries is really facing difficulties. They are tasting the bitter fruit of mass naturalization.

After Indonesia U23 lost the ticket to the U23 Asian Cup, coach Gerald Vanenburg frankly looked at the current situation of football in this country. The Dutch strategist shared: “If we look at Korea, their young players are given the opportunity to play every week.

From a team that made it to the top 4 of the U23 Asian tournament, U23 Indonesia could not pass the qualifying round (Photo: Bola).

There are two issues to discuss in Indonesia. The first is the physical condition of the young players. The second is whether they will have enough playing time and be ready for the Asian level tournament when they return to their clubs. Again, I emphasize the physical issue. Players who only play until the 60th minute will be exhausted.

Going back in time to 2020, when coach Shin Tae Yong had just taken charge of the Indonesian national team and the wave of naturalized players had not yet "landed" on the team. One of the first comments of the Korean coach was to point out the physical weakness of the local players. He also said that the Indonesian players were only strong enough to play for 60 minutes.

That means, if we only consider the issue of native players, Indonesia has not developed at all, not to mention regressed. To compensate for this shortage, Indonesia has recruited a series of players of European origin (mostly Dutch). That has helped the football of the archipelago country to dominate Asia.

But that is just the surface. At the core, everything is almost empty. Despite investment in Indonesian youth football, it cannot develop as expected, especially when young players do not have many opportunities to rub shoulders.

Even the achievement of U23 Indonesia reaching the semi-finals of the 2024 AFC U23 Championship was thanks to the help of most of the naturalized players. The fact that a team that almost got a ticket to the Olympics but could not get a ticket to the next AFC U23 Championship shows that they have no successor. Do not justify that U23 Indonesia had to be in the same group with U23 Korea when they "shot themselves in the foot" with a draw against U23 Laos.

Not only the U23 team, the U17 team of Indonesia also only won 3rd place in the Southeast Asian tournament, and the U20 team failed to pass the group stage of the U20 Asian tournament for three consecutive times. Even the Indonesian national team, without naturalized stars, had to stop at the group stage of the AFF Cup 2024.

U23 Malaysia "shows its true colors" without its naturalized stars (Photo: AFC).

The increasing presence of naturalized players is inversely proportional to the ability of local players to play. Even young Indonesian players have almost no chance to play in that system.

Not long ago, the Indonesian press asked the question: “Where will this country’s football go when the current generation of naturalized players passes away?”. If they do not improve the situation, what will appear before their eyes is only a rotten core.

Similar to Indonesia, Malaysia had to rely on naturalized players to find momentum for the national team. Immediately, the "magic wand" called naturalization worked when helping the Malaysian team win three consecutive victories against Vietnam, Singapore and Palestine.

However, in contrast, U23 Malaysia tasted bitterness when they only ranked third in the qualifying round of the U23 Asian Cup. In fact, Malaysian youth football has "stalled" for a long time when the young generations of Malaysia could not make an impression in Southeast Asia, let alone Asia.

Recently, the Malaysian Football Federation has made a decision that is said to completely “eliminate” the opportunities of domestic players by allowing each club to register 15 foreign players, of which 7 players will play. This will help Malaysia have an abundant source of foreign players, but on the contrary, it almost ends the opportunities of young players.

In the long run, Malaysia will have to rely on naturalized players. That is extremely dangerous but it seems that Malaysian football people are willing to make the trade-off because they have not found success for too long.

It is not necessarily wrong for the two football nations of Indonesia and Malaysia to ignore the core elements for immediate success (in the present) but they may face the risk of collapse in the future with this approach. As the poet Gamzatov once said: “If you shoot at the past with a pistol, the future will shoot at you with a cannon.”

Source: https://dantri.com.vn/the-thao/u23-indonesia-va-malaysia-hien-nguyen-hinh-trai-dang-cua-nhap-tich-o-at-20250911094251927.htm