The debate around the issue of having naturalised athletes as part of the Indonesia National Football Team seems to have reached the point of no return.
In the football world, naturalisation is not a new concept. It has been practised for years, with many countries adopting the approach, including Indonesia.
Indonesia National Football Team (or in Indonesian: Timnas Indonesia) has not achieved a good result in the last decades. Substituting coaches and players does not present Indonesia with prestigious trophies. Even in the AFF Cup, a tournament for Southeast Asian countries, Indonesia has never claimed the title; runner-up is the best result they have achieved.
Of course, this situation has left many Indonesian citizens frustrated. How is it possible that, with a population of 280 million, the country cannot find its best 11 players?
Indonesia has its own domestic football league, namely Liga 1 (previously known as Indonesia Super League). However, the level is still lower than the neighbouring football leagues, such as Malaysia Super League and Thai League 1, whose league champions will compete in the AFC Champions League Elite. Meanwhile, the champion of Liga 1 can only compete in the AFC Champions League Two qualifying play-off.
The quality of the football league is undoubtedly influenced by the quality of its players. Furthermore, Liga 1 has a regulation to limit the recruitment of foreign players to improve the quality of local players, but this does not really help. If you watch a Liga 1 match, you will notice how bad most of the players are. The ones that play quite well are actually the foreign players.
That is why, since Erick Thohir was appointed the head of PSSI (Persatuan Sepakbola Seluruh Indonesia or the Indonesian Football Association), more foreign players have been naturalised to play for Indonesia, given their superior quality, at least at the Asian level. Thohir also brought in South Korean coach Shin Tae-yong, who led the South Korean national team in the 2018 FIFA World Cup, to manage Timnas Indonesia. The combination of naturalised players and a well-experienced coach is, hopefully, able to bring Indonesia to a higher level.
The naturalisation process is certainly not that easy and cannot be done carelessly. Still, Thohir has to select qualified players who have Indonesian blood in their veins — literally. Today, the naturalised players come from the Netherlands since most of them have Indonesian blood from their father or mother or even grandparents. Today, there are 11 naturalised players in the Indonesia national team squad. All those players are selected because they are playing in the highest level of international football league, such as the Premier League in England, Serie A in Italy, Eredivisie in the Netherlands, and Major League Soccer in the United States. Although they do not play for big teams, they compete with international-level teams in each league, which can improve their playing style and skills.
Nonetheless, player naturalisation has sparked debate among Indonesian football pundits and local players. Critics argue that it is unfair to select players who have recently changed their citizenship to represent the national team, rather than choosing local players who have been playing in Indonesia for years. Also, in a YouTube podcast, a local player mentioned that the quality of naturalised players and local players is quite similar, but the difference lies in the fact that the naturalised players are playing abroad, while the locals are playing in Indonesia.
With better quality, no wonder PSSI will choose naturalised players to play for Indonesia National Football Team. This strategy has already shown results. Evidently, with this current squad, Indonesia has risen to the 129th place in the FIFA World Standing, which was previously in the 173th. This makes Indonesia the third-ranked ASEAN country after Thailand (100th) and Vietnam (116th). Furthermore, the team has made history by reaching the third round of the 2026 FIFA World Cup Asian qualifiers for the first time.
Overall, this proves that the inclusion of naturalised players has significantly boosted Indonesia’s football quality — at least for now. After all, just like a football match, anyone can be a game-changer.