A few years ago, there were a lot of naturalized players in China, and they also flooded the national team of this country, similar to the nature of the Indonesian, Malaysian, and Cambodian teams in Southeast Asia today.
However, the above naturalized players (mostly of Brazilian origin) not only cannot help the national team of a billion-people country become stronger, but on the contrary, they also make the Chinese team weaker.
From participating in the 2002 World Cup finals, with the main players being domestic players. After many years of pursuing the policy of using naturalized players, the Chinese team has not returned to the World Cup finals since then. In fact, they are no longer a force in Asian football.
The contrast between Chinese football and Japanese football
Many years ago, Japanese football considered improving the quality of their national team with a group of naturalized Brazilian players. However, the more the Japanese pursued this policy, the more they realized the shortcomings.
The Chinese team with many naturalized players still lost to the Vietnamese team in the 2022 World Cup qualifiers (Photo: Do Linh).
Truly high-quality players do not abandon their football roots to go to the Far East, while those willing to be naturalized to play for the Japanese national team are of no better quality than pure domestic players.
Even in terms of desire to win, discipline, and compatibility with the main style of play that Japanese football wants to aim for, pure Japanese players perform much better than naturalized players.
As a result, Japan has become the leading football nation in Asia, gradually joining the world-class group. Japan's football performance in the World Cup finals in recent years has been very stable, they are capable of qualifying for the knockout round of the World Cup year after year.
All of that is thanks to the excellent youth training of Japanese football, which helps this football have inheritance and continuity in terms of talent, not thanks to the naturalized players.
This is something that Chinese football does not have. Chinese football is almost the opposite of Japanese football: Youth training in the country of a billion people is not highly regarded. When naturalized players cannot play effectively, the Chinese team immediately falls short, because of the lack of successors.
Regarding the issue of naturalized players, former coach of the Vietnam U23 team, former coach of the Vietnam U20 team, an expert in youth training, Mr. Hoang Anh Tuan shared: "Regarding the issue of using naturalized players, I think this is just a temporary solution, used by us at a certain time with a considered number."
Vietnamese football has developed steadily thanks to good youth training (Photo: Huong Duong).
"The reason why Vietnamese football has developed steadily in recent years, and is expected to continue to do so in the coming years, is because we have the best youth training in Southeast Asia, second only to Thailand.
We are more stable than Indonesia. They may have invested heavily during this period, but Indonesian football has been the same for a long time, they have not had stability. Even the mass naturalization of Indonesian football players is only a temporary way to create a breakthrough, it is difficult to say that it is a sustainable way.
Meanwhile, with Malaysian football, since coach Rajagopal won the AFF Cup 2010, the country's football has declined a lot, they have been going downhill ever since," coach Hoang Anh Tuan further analyzed.
Southeast Asian football on the "deadly tightrope"
Also speaking of Malaysian football, like Chinese football, Malaysia is currently flooded with naturalized players. And like the Chinese team, after many years of using naturalized players, the Malaysian team has not only not become stronger, but has also become weaker.
As coach Hoang Anh Tuan mentioned, since coach Rajagopal helped the Malaysian team win the AFF Cup 2010, the team has not returned to the top position of Southeast Asian football.
In recent years, the Malaysian team has even been further and further away from the AFF Cup and SEA Games finals, in the context of their naturalized players not being effective.
Regarding the issue of naturalized Malaysian players, former VFF Vice President Duong Vu Lam analyzed: "For naturalized players without native origin, according to FIFA rules, they must spend at least 5 years playing continuously in each host country before being naturalized and playing for that national team."
"Maybe when they are discovered and proposed for naturalization, they are young, energetic and full of desire. However, after 5 years, these players start to age, lose strength, and at the same time their desire to contribute gradually decreases.
South African-born center back Kan Mo of the Cambodian national team (Photo: Khoa Nguyen).
After 5 years of continuous competition in the host country, when they are allowed to join the national team of that country, their performance only goes down, not up. That is one of the reasons why teams using naturalized players without local roots are weaker, but it is rare for a team using naturalized players to become stronger," Mr. Lam continued.
That is also the reason why the Football Association of Malaysia (FAM) recently announced to stop naturalizing new players who do not have Malaysian roots. FAM said that it will not propose or guarantee to the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Ministry of Youth and Sports of this country about naturalizing players who do not have roots, allowing them to play for the Malaysian national team.
Preserve development opportunities for young talents
FAM's point of view in not using naturalized players without Malaysian roots is to let domestic clubs focus on training young players, instead of just chasing temporary achievements.
This is something that has also been mentioned by Indonesian experts and media, after witnessing the influx of European-origin players into the national team at the moment. Indonesian experts and fans have said outright that the influx of naturalized players into the national team is eliminating the opportunity for native football talents to excel.
If naturalized players flooded the national team, we might not have the Quang Hai of today (Photo: Tien Tuan)
After Indonesia and Malaysia, now it is the turn of the Cambodian national team to favor naturalized players. However, because the Cambodian national team's influence on Southeast Asian football is not yet great, people have not paid much attention to the team from the land of pagodas.
But, as former VFF Vice President Duong Vu Lam said, he has never seen a team using naturalized players without any background and still be strong and sustainable. Therefore, the fact that the Cambodian team is pursuing a policy of using naturalized players is not necessarily an optimistic sign.
Meanwhile, an official running domestic football shared: "If we rush into using naturalized players everywhere, where will Vietnamese football get Cong Phuong, Quang Hai, Cong Vinh? They are symbols of the rise of young people who love football and become famous through football."
"Using too many naturalized players also means eliminating the opportunity for local football talents to develop, and can also eliminate the passion and desire for success of young players," he added.
Source: https://dantri.com.vn/the-thao/cau-thu-nhap-tich-tran-ngap-dong-nam-a-bai-hoc-tu-bong-da-trung-quoc-20250319142104737.htm
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