Vietnamese football and its internal strength

07/10/2025 19:55:00 pandatv

While the scandal storm about using naturalized players improperly leading to FIFA penalties has not yet calmed down, the Football Association of Malaysia (FAM) continues on its chosen path by deciding to include many "foreign players" in the national team roster to prepare for the upcoming two matches against Laos in the final round of the 2027 Asian Cup qualifiers.

Accordingly, among the 29 Malaysian players recently called up, there are still as many as 12 who were born abroad, including two new players: defender Richard Chin (born in England, currently playing for Raith Rovers) and forward Jordan Mintah (born in Ghana, currently with Kuching City FC).

This action has caused considerable frustration among Malaysian football fans because even though the naturalized player scandal remains unresolved, FAM has not demonstrated that it has learned the necessary lessons about how to properly use players for the national team.

However, if one puts themselves in FAM’s shoes, it becomes clear that they have no other options, as Malaysian football is facing a severe crisis with the next generation for the national team, and the current national squad lacks enough personnel to give FAM confidence when competing against regional rivals.

In the two most recent tournaments for the U23 category—the 2025 Southeast Asian U23 Championship and the 2026 Asian U23 qualifiers—Malaysia’s U23 team performed poorly. At the 2025 Southeast Asian U23 Championship, Malaysia’s U23 only defeated Brunei 7-1 but then lost 0-2 to the Philippines and drew 0-0 with Indonesia, exiting the tournament right after the group stage.

In the 2026 Asian U23 qualifiers, Malaysia’s U23 beat Mongolia 7-0 but lost to Lebanon and Thailand by scores of 0-1 and 1-2 respectively, also failing to secure a spot in the finals in Saudi Arabia next January.

Dinh Bac is one of the seven U23 players called up to the Vietnam national team in this training camp. Photo: Hoang Linh

Meanwhile, in complete contrast to Malaysia’s U23, Vietnam’s U23 not only won the 2025 Southeast Asian U23 Championship in Indonesia by defeating host Indonesia in the final but also earned a place in the 2026 Asian U23 Championship finals by finishing first in the qualifiers. This is Vietnam’s U23 team’s sixth consecutive appearance at the Asian finals.

And in the current training camp preparing for the final round of the 2027 Asian Cup qualifiers, while Malaysia’s national team still depends on naturalized foreign players despite the ongoing FIFA and AFC sanctions hanging over them, Vietnam’s national team can call up as many as seven players from the Vietnam U23 squad.

This is a huge contrast, showing two completely different paths between the two football systems, and it also partly explains why FAM has no other choice but to rely on foreign resources rather than investing in youth training, which, although long-term and expensive, is always the solid foundation of any football nation.

A notable coincidence is that at the recent draw for the 2026 Asian U23 Championship finals, only two Southeast Asian representatives, Vietnam and Thailand, were present, while the two teams strongly upgrading their national teams with foreign players, Indonesia and Malaysia, failed to qualify.

Ultimately, this is normal because for the past 20 years, Vietnam and Thailand have been two football nations that consistently invest heavily and carefully in their domestic leagues and youth development programs.

Therefore, the performances of the Vietnam and Thailand national teams may fluctuate depending on the period, but the internal strength of these two football systems has always remained stable, never overly relying on external elements like foreign-born or naturalized players.

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