Vietnam and Indonesia Race to Naturalise Players: Both Are Dodging the Real Question About the V.League and Liga 1

In the 78th minute of the second leg of the 2026 ASEAN Cup final at Rajamangala Stadium in Bangkok, Nguyễn Xuân Son went down inside the box. He had just scored, then collapsed, and the stretcher carried him off to the silence of tens of thousands of spectators. Vietnam still lifted the trophy that night, but the image of the single most expensive naturalised striker in Vietnamese football being carried off exposed a truth few want to say out loud: we had just staked the Southeast Asian crown on a forward born in Brazil, while our domestic striker production line had run dry long before. I remember that moment not for the emotion. I remember it because it was a data point. People remember me from a line I said in 2026, but the story started long before that. And the real story of this Southeast Asian football season is not in the medal — it is in the ever-growing list of naturalised players belonging to the region's two biggest football nations. Look at the context before passing judgement. Within three years, Southeast Asia has witnessed a race with no real precedent. Indonesia has gone furthest: by the 2026 World Cup qualifiers, the archipelago's national team had called up a wave of Indonesia-heritage players born and raised in Europe — Jay Idzes, Mees Hilgers, Thom Haye, Calvin Verdonk, Eliano Reijnders, Ragnar Oratmangoen, Ole Romeny. This is no longer an isolated phenomenon. It is an organised strategy, implemented by the Football Association of Indonesia (PSSI) as a national project. Vietnam chose a different road in scale but not in substance. We have Nguyễn Xuân Son, formerly Rafaelson, who quickly became the centre of every attacking plan under head coach Kim Sang-sik. The difference lies in quantity, not logic. When a football nation can no longer produce forwards of the required level, it buys them. When the development system no longer creates creative midfielders who can control tempo, it imports them. Both federations are doing exactly that, only at different doses. The trouble is this: naturalisation treats the symptom, not the disease. And the disease that Vietnamese and Indonesian football share has a very specific name — the tactical quality of the domestic league. The V.League and Liga 1 are not teaching local players how to play at the highest level. That is the question both football nations are dodging. Start with the data I have observed across many years of watching V.League matches. One of the most worrying indicators is not the number of goals but the structure of the passing. The share of long balls in V.League games routinely sits at an abnormally high level compared to top Asian leagues. PPDA — the number of passes a team allows its opponent before committing a defensive action — sits in the mid-to-low range for most V.League sides, meaning pressing is disorganised, unsystematic, and lacking collective intent. Players are not learning to press as a block. That sounds technical, but the consequences for the national team are concrete. When they step onto the continental stage, domestic midfielders do not know how to escape high pressure, because at home they have never met that pressure systematically. They are not used to the pace of decision-making within two seconds. That is why, in big matches, Vietnam's ball often goes long and goes early — not because the coach loves it, but because the players have no short option they trust enough. The story in Indonesia's Liga 1 is no better, only differently shaped. The archipelago's league has enormous crowds and one of the most passionate atmospheres in Asia, but its technical quality is governed by financial instability, a punishing calendar, and a culture of changing coaches like shirts. When a club changes its coach several times a season, no tactical philosophy has time to take root. Young players who grow up in that environment mature physically and in survival instinct, but not tactically. That is exactly why Indonesia's naturalisation wave is not a luxury choice. It is a compensation. They import players developed in the Dutch system — where they learned to play as a block, to move off the ball, to read the game — to fill the gap that Liga 1 cannot fill. And it has produced results: for the first time in history, Indonesia reached the third round of the 2026 World Cup qualifiers in Asia. I can see it when I watch them. That is a real achievement. But let us be honest: that achievement is run on a framework Indonesian football did not build with its own hands. If tomorrow the supply of heritage players dries up, or if FIFA tightens residence requirements, that team would return to exactly the position its domestic league deserves. That is not a bitter prediction. It is a simple calculation of resources. Vietnam has taken the narrower road and, in a sense, the more dangerous one. We naturalise only a few positions, but we load the entire attacking burden onto Nguyễn Xuân Son. When he is fit, the attack has an anchor. When he is injured — as in that very 2026 ASEAN Cup final — the attacking system loses its pivot and instantly reveals its lack of a back-up plan. That is the mark of a fragile structure hidden behind one outstanding individual. If you want an example of dependency, answer one question yourself: in the current Vietnam squad, who is the domestic forward good enough to start a regional semi-final? If the answer comes slowly, you already understand the problem. We are not short of players who run. We are short of players who think. And that is the direct product of a decade of domestic football played on instinct rather than structure. So who is responsible? I ask this seriously, because in Southeast Asian football the habit is to blame the foreign coach and then sack him. Philippe Troussier was blamed when Vietnam's possession game was smothered. Shin Tae-yong was blamed when Indonesia did not score enough. But both were handed a team whose raw material had already been limited at club level. The real responsibility sits higher: with clubs unwilling to invest in youth systems with tactical depth, and with federations not strong enough to force their leagues to operate more professionally. This is where I must be clear, because I do not want to be read as someone who is against naturalisation. Naturalisation is not bad. It is only bad when used as a life raft instead of an added spearhead. A high-quality naturalised player can raise an entire collective, lifting the training standards and competitive thinking of those around him. Nguyễn Xuân Son does that. Jay Idzes does that. The problem arises when naturalisation becomes the only answer, while the domestic development system stands still. And this is where I might be wrong — I say it upfront so we can watch together. One could argue that in a region still far behind the continent, accelerating through naturalisation is the only way not to be left behind, that Japan and Qatar did something similar early on and still succeeded later. That is a strong argument, and I grant it. The difference is that Japan built the J.League into a development machine in parallel with its naturalisation wave, while the V.League and Liga 1 have not done so at the same speed. Naturalisation saves one generation; a domestic league saves many. So let us not be fooled by medals. Vietnam's 2026 ASEAN Cup title is a real achievement, worthy of respect. But if ten years from now we are still talking about needing to naturalise another striker to rescue the attack, then today is the moment the system failed. Football is a sport that makes you pay for structural gaps. And both Vietnam and Indonesia are paying with the very thing we refuse to look at directly. My prediction, for you to come back and check: from this point until the end of the third round of the 2026 World Cup qualifiers in Asia, one of these two national teams will have at least two matches in which naturalised players score or assist most of the goals, while the domestically developed players on the pitch create no more than one clear chance per match. If that happens, you know what to conclude about your football. And if I am wrong, come back here and tell me. I would rather be proven wrong by a football nation that has cured itself than be proven right by one that keeps buying the medicine.