In our discussion on whether Vietnam should recruit naturalized foreign footballers for the national team, currently a hot topic after Vietnam’s early exit at Suzuki Cup, respected football analyst Nguyen Van Vinh turns the question on its head.
“Does Malaysia have any naturalized foreign players on its team?” he asked.
“Whatever you do with naturalized players is OK, as long as it is to improve domestic football in Vietnam,” the former coach and technical director of V-League club Hoang Anh Gia Lai told Tuoi Tre.
He added that we could not compare foreign players being granted citizenship in Vietnam with similar stories in other countries.
“The difference is the way and motivation we grant citizenship to them,” Vinh said.
In foreign countries, a player of foreign origin is only given the honor if he or she is well integrated into the local culture and society.
An example, the Germans -- who are much proud of their stock -- introduced their national football squad to the 2010 World Cup Finals in South Africa in June with 11 players of foreign origin.
They are, however, almost 100 percent Germans before learning to play football, Vinh said, adding that they grow up and rely on professional training in Germany to become talented. As such, they should not raise any eyebrow when given the honor to don the national cap and play for the national team.
In Vietnam, non-native footballers came to Vietnam on a football contract with local clubs and were later awarded citizenship with strong legal support from their clubs.
The reason these clubs wanted to naturalize these foreigners is to evade the local rule capping the number of foreign players on any team at three.
Consequently, admitting naturalized players into the Vietnamese national team cannot help improve the domestic football landscape.
“The national football team of Malaysia include all domestic players, but can still advance to the finals of the ongoing Suzuki Cup,” Vinh said.
The bottom line is, to make the Vietnamese national team stronger relies on well thought-out development plan, not on the use of naturalized players, according to the expert.
