THE Philippine Football Federation has no plans of bringing naturalized players to the men’s team following the practice of other Southeast Asian countries during the recently-concluded ASEAN Mitsubishi Electric Cup 2024.
PFF director of national teams Freddy Gonzalez believes that the Philippines has enough talent pool – local and overseas – that naturalizing players for the team is not part of the national team program’s plans.
The Philippines is coming off an impressive showing in the ASEAN Cup where it reached the semifinals, winning a match against Thailand in the first of its two-legged series before. PMNT was eventually ousted after Thailand won in the second leg and finished with an aggregate score of 5-3.
READ: Sky's the limit for PMNT after impressive showing in Asean Cup
“I’ll never naturalize somebody who doesn’t have any Filipino heritage,” said Gonzalez on the sidelines of the unveiling of the Philippine women’s futsal team. “That’s not something that I would like to do," Gonzalez said
“I believe we have enough talented Filipino players here and abroad so we don’t need to go that route and try to naturalized foreigners who have nothing to do with the country and have no Filipino blood, who have no relationship to the Philippines," he added.
“So it’s not something that I ever want to do."
The ASEAN Mitsubishi Electric Cup 2024 featured several naturalized players led by Nguyen Xuan Son, a Brazilian also known as Rafaelson who made his Vietnam debut this year after being allowed by FIFA to play for the nation after a five-year residency period that also saw him play in the domestic league.
Rafaelson was named the MVP of the tournament after contributing to Vietnam’s title run by scoring seven goals despite suffering a tibia injury during the second leg of the final against Thailand.
Other teams had multiple naturalized players.
Vietnam actually had the least naturalized players in the tournament with two, with Malaysia and Cambodia reportedly having eight each, and Indonesia with four during the ASEAN Football Federation tournament.
The Philippines has one naturalized football player in Spanish player Bienve Marañon, who acquired Philippine citizenship in 2021 and played for the national squad in the 2022 ASEAN Cup.
Gonzalez clarified that he is not against naturalized players, as he only believes there is enough Filipino talent to choose from.
“I’m not critiquing what they did with Maranon. Maranon is a great player. I wish we had somebody like him. But it’s not something that I have any interest of doing, getting a Spanish player or somebody and making them Filipino. We want to do it with Filipino players, Filipino-blooded players,” said Gonzalez.
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