Prof. Imam Syafi'i was inaugurated as a professor in the field of early childhood football coaching at the Faculty of Sports and Health Sciences (FIKK) Surabaya State University (UNESA). He spoke about the naturalization and development of young national football talents in his inaugural speech.
Unesa.ac.id. SURABAYA—Indonesia is the largest country that uses naturalized players in the world of football. In the 2026 World Cup qualifiers, Indonesia's naturalized players reached 81.81%. This figure exceeds the naturalized players used by Morocco, 61.5%, Senegal 39%, and Switzerland 34.7% in the 2022 World Cup.
The naturalization of Indonesian football was carried out in 1951 by Arnold van der Vin from the Netherlands as goalkeeper. Recently, naturalization has continued to be carried out, and on a massive scale, the PSSI management under the leadership of Erick Thohir, uses the most naturalized players (to date there are at least 17 naturalized players).
The success of the Indonesian National Football Team with its naturalization strategy is indeed worthy thumbs up. From the ranking aspect, FIFA World Rankings, Indonesia rose from 173rd position in December 2019 to 125th position in December 2024, and has now fallen slightly to 130th position, due to losing in the AFF Cup.
Apart from that, the team's achievement, in the history of Indonesian football, is that this is the first time it has succeeded in qualifying teams in all age groups in the Asian Cup, starting from the U-17, U-20, U-23 groups to the national team. senior. The senior national team also managed to pass the 3rd round of qualifying for the 2026 World Cup.
'Can't' Rely on Naturalization
In fact, this is the first time in history that the Indonesian Women's National Team won 2024 AFF Cup with three naturalized players. This was stated by Prof. Imam Syafi'i in his inauguration speech as professor of early childhood football coaching at Graha Sawunggaling, Surabaya State University (UNESA) Campus II Lidah Wetan, Surabaya, on December 22 2024.
In his oration entitled 'Naturalization, Between Global Civilization Shifts, and the Challenges of National Football Development', Prof Imam emphasized that the strategy of bringing in foreign players could be carried out even without breaking the rules, but it could not be carried out continuously. reliable for the long term.
"The question is how long will this naturalization take place? What are the chances of local players if 81% of the line-up are naturalized players? Why do we do coaching? "Why do we hold competitions and trainer courses if our coaching products don't have channels," he said.
Referring to a number of large countries such as Germany, Belgium and Japan, for example, when their national teams were in decline, they did not carry out massive naturalization, but improved the development of football talent from an early and young age.
Continuous Development Improvement
Therefore, according to Imam, the naturalization program in Indonesia must be aligned with the internal development of national football by improving youth development< /em>, the coaching curriculum, strengthening and improving the quality of pre-school and youth coaching, improving the quality of coaching resources, the quality of competition, organization, infrastructure and work ethic.
This is what has not been fully implemented. The work ethic of football stakeholders is not optimal. Often create short-term and long-term programs, but they only become report documents that are put on the shelf as mere academic texts, but are rarely used as references and implemented.
Various program documents, achievements or 'data bases 'The development of national football development must become the basis of policy and be fully implemented with commitment and a strong work ethic. "If we carry out this internal development seriously from upstream to downstream, then the achievements of the national team and Indonesian football will skyrocket with our own trained players," he concluded.
Brief Biodata
Imam Syafi'i was born in Bangkalan, January 24 1966. He completed elementary to high school in his birthplace, then completed the Bachelor of Sports Coaching Education at IKIP Surabaya (UNESA). Furthermore, he obtained a master's degree at Airlangga University (Unair) and a doctorate at UNESA.
The title of professor in early childhood football coaching that he holds cannot be separated from his interest in the world of football since childhood. Even though his football career ended in Persebaya's internal competition, his contribution to the organization and the world of football is beyond doubt. He was a PSSI administrator at the provincial level (5 periods, 1999-2018) to the central level, and was an administrator for KONI East Java.
He also has a lot of experience at international level, including being the PIC of the Real Madrid Foundation Football School in Sidoarjo, and being involved in the Indonesian-American Soccer Exchange program in San Francisco. His team's achievement in winning the Phuket International Tournament led him to become a coaching clinic coach in Bangkok. founded four football academies. Many of the young talents under his care are now playing for big clubs and breaking into the national team. Some of them include Marselino Ferdinand and Hugo Samir. He was inaugurated as a professor in the field of early childhood football coaching at the Faculty of Sports and Health Sciences (FIKK) UNESA on December 22 2024. [*]
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Reporter: Muhammad Azhar Adi Mas'ud (FBS)
Editor: @zam*
Photo: UNESA PR Team
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