In a recent interview in the Netherlands, Mr. Erick Thohir stated: "For the Indonesian team, of course we want to participate in the World Cup continuously. My goal is to bring Indonesian football to the World Cup, even the Olympics. Unfortunately, the Indonesian Olympic team failed once. However, we will do it again at the 2028 Olympics.
That's why we are building the U17 team. This is the first time in history that Indonesian football has participated in all U17, U20, U23 Asian tournaments and has the hope of participating in the World Cup as well as the Olympics."
This is completely reasonable when in the past 2 years, Indonesian football has continuously naturalized players of Indonesian origin but grew up and played in Europe, most of them from the Netherlands. They have been convinced to return to serve the national team of the archipelago.
The successes were also immediately evident. At the national team level, the Indonesian team is currently participating in the third qualifying round of the 2026 World Cup in Asia. With 6 points after 6 matches, the team from the archipelago is ranked 3rd in Group C and has a great chance to enter the next round.
Previously, the Indonesian U23 team reached the final play-off round to compete for a place at the 2024 Paris Olympics but was unsuccessful.
"In fact, we have had a naturalization strategy for a long time. This has been going on since the time of 3 or 4 of my previous Presidents. This is not new, but we are trying to naturalize players with good quality and national spirit. We do not randomly choose any player," Mr. Thohir emphasized.
