Mixed Players to Boost Asean Football?

Mixed players or some people say"naturalization players" are getting common is Asean football these days. Its actually a two different things though from my prespective. Mixed player is belong to players who represents the country who he has descendants and naturalization players is players who has living in a country for enough time to give the citizenship or just "be bought" to play for their national team.

This trend has started in Asean since 2002(cmiw) when Mirko Grabovac and Daniel Bennett played for Singapore at AFF Cup and two years later Itimo Dickson and Agus Casmir joined them and broght glory at the 2004 AFF Cup. However for small population country like Singapore it sounds make sense to strengthen their squad with bunch of foreign players but now adays the idea has spread across the region.

Take a look at Phillipines football team, the squad is consist of 90% of mixed players. Until five years ago they are not even qualified for the 2008 AFF Cup and now they're number 1 in FIFA rankings among the Asean country. With the likes of Neil Eithridge, Carli de Murga, Stephan Shrock, Younghusband brothers and the financial back up by Dan Palami they're aiming to reach the 2015 Asia Cup.

The only "local" player is the goalkeeper Eduard Sacapano

While Indonesia, the biggest football nation in the region still struggling and recently banned the naturalization players in the national team. To me personally this action was wrong because all they have to do is just raise up the standard for players who has indonesian descent and willing to play for his new country. Yes Irfan Bachdim and Diego Michiels might lose their best performance but with the uncertainity of their team it is all make sense.

Sergio Van Dijk has already marked his name in Asia so no doubt about his ability. For Nigerian-Indonesian Greg Nwokolo and Victor Igbonefo has been first choice as well at the national team though. Stefano Lilipaly indeed has a tough time at his 2nd division Holland club Almere City but he could be star at the team. And also Ruben Wuarbanaran who dissapear for 2 years has back and in Indonesia to show people that he can play unlike the last time after signed with Barito Putera along with Tonnie Cussell who also willing to show that he still wants to play for Garuda.

Tonnie Cussell, Maitimo and Van Beukering

Lets move over to Thailand, Peter Laeng is half Swiss player who moved to Thailand to play for Bangkok Glass in 2009 and joined the national team under Peter Reid after Peter Reid left position in late 2009  he never called up again although remain in Thailand. Next we got Anthony Ampaipitakwong who has played in the MLS with San Jose Earthquakes and after a year and a half play in Thai League he doing well and so far played 2 times for his country.

The last one from Thailand is pretty high profile, Charyl Chappuis has played Swiss U-17 team that had won U-17 FIFA World Cup in 2009 along with Patjim Kasami and Haris Seferovic. He signed for Buriram United earlier this year and already succeed in his first year in Asia after winning every competition with his club except ACL and gave gold medal at the SEA Games.

Chappuis, number 4 in the middle

Malaysia already has Junior Eldstal who played such a major role last season at his club Sarawak FA and aim to be a key part in Harimau Malaya senior squad while Brendan Gan citizenship is not acceptable for FAM to acknowledge him to be local player after he signed with Kelantan FA for next season.

Even Cambodia also trying to compete in region after Germany Based forward who play for 2 Bundesliga FSV Franfurt Chunly Pagenburg made his debut against Guam in November. Last but not least Timor Leste also add many unnamed Brazillian to their squad.

There is no guarantee that using mized players or naturalization players will improve the overall quality of a team but its a good way to see new faces in our region afterall top team such as Spain who once had Mariano Pernia(Argentinian) and Marcos Senna(Brazillian) and Portugal still using the service of Pepe(Brazil).