The first—and last—time Indonesia participated in the FIFA World Cup finals was in France in 1938. Competing as the Dutch East Indies, the team was eliminated in the first round with a 6-0 loss to Hungary. The media was ultimately more interested in the fact that captain Achmad Nawir, a doctor, took to the field wearing glasses than it was in the team’s unremarkable performance.
At the time, a growing independence movement was taking hold after centuries of Dutch occupation and exploitation. Following Japanese takeover during World War II, the Indonesian nationalist forces declared independence in 1945. Years of military hostilities followed, but by December 1949, Indonesia was granted complete and unconditional sovereignty as its own independent state.
Indonesia’s first president, Sukarno, saw soccer as a way to bolster national pride and unity. Whereas the 1938 national team was a mix of local players and Dutch nationals born in the Dutch East Indies, the post-independence squad became an important symbol of the new country, competing in the Asian Games in 1951 and the Melbourne Olympics five years later. Sukarno also used soccer as a way to foster diplomatic connections. He invited the Yugoslavian team, representing a leading non-alignment country, to his personal residence in 1955, and he repeatedly refused to allow the Indonesian team to play against Israel in international play.
In the decades that followed, however, Asia struggled to close the gap between its soccer organizations and established hotbeds in Europe and South America. Lacking similar organization, revenue, and facilities, Indonesian soccer lagged behind the giants of South Korea and Japan in the east and Saudi Arabia and Iran in the west. It wasn’t until 1994 that Indonesia’s first fully professional league was established.
But now, the long-underachieving soccer-mad country has made it to the third round of World Cup qualification for the first time ever—putting it closer to the Cup than at any time in the past 86 years.
Though they long ago stopped playing under the Dutch East Indies name, the Indonesian team’s rapid rise is largely thanks to a new embrace of its colonial past.
In 2020, the country’s soccer federation, known locally as PSSI, hired coach Shin Tae-yong to lead the national team. At the time, Indonesia was already out of the running to qualify for the 2022 World Cup, finishing at the bottom of its group in the second round. The South Korean, who coached his home nation’s team to the 2018 World Cup, brought new hope for Indonesian soccer fans. In 2023, Erick Thohir, the minister of state-owned enterprises and a former owner of the Italian giant Inter Milan and the U.S. club D.C. United, became the new chairman of PSSI.
Under Shin and Thohir, Indonesia has adopted a new approach for recruiting soccer players. FIFA rules stipulate that players may represent countries other than those they were born in, are a citizen of, or are a long-term resident of, if their parents or grandparents were born in that country. Indonesia has embraced this rule and is now tapping extensively into the talent pool of the Indonesian diaspora—crucially, in the Netherlands.
Indonesia’s roster has more players born in the Netherlands than in the archipelago itself. Many of these recruits may not have been good enough to make the national team rosters of their birth country, but they are making a real difference for Indonesia. Recent additions include Maarten Paes, a former Dutch Under-21 goalkeeper who was the hero against Saudi Arabia in his first game for Indonesia. The captain, Jay Idzes, is another 2024 recruit who plays in Italy’s top tier. On Sept. 30, two more players from the top tier of Dutch soccer, Mees Hilgers and Eliano Reijnders, also became naturalized Indonesian citizens, making them eligible for the upcoming World Cup qualifier matches.
European countries with significant colonial legacies, such as France and the Netherlands, have long strengthened their national teams by including foreign-born players on their rosters. For instance, 87 percent of France’s 2018 World Cup-winning squad had immigrant origins. Kylian Mbappé, perhaps the best player in the world, has an Algerian mother and a Cameroonian father and could have opted to play for either country, yet he chose to play for France, where he was born. In England, six members of its 2017 Under-20 World Cup roster could have played for Nigeria but chose to play for England instead.
But, as Afolabi Adekaiyaoja wrote in these pages earlier this year, there is a reversal of sorts underway, and many other countries are taking advantage of FIFA’s rules. “Of the 630 players representing 24 teams at the [2024 Africa Cup of Nations], 200, or about 32 percent, are from the African diaspora … revealing the increasing attraction of playing for African teams.” More broadly, during the 2022 World Cup, around 16.5 percent of players were born in a country other than the one they represented.
When Shin first began naturalizing foreign players, he faced his share of criticism within the country. Well-known pundits questioned the move and argued that Shin should have focused more on improving local, national team players. They felt that drafting in ready-made talent was a shortcut that would undermine player development at home.
Neighbors in the region have also been critical. The media in Vietnam, a regional rival of Indonesia, for instance, has covered the naturalization process extensively, telling readers about European players receiving passports as they arrived at airports and players being paid to play to naturalize—accusations that Jakarta has denied.
In March, Vietnam’s star defender, Do Duy Manh, said playing Indonesia was now like playing the Netherlands. Indonesian midfielder Marc Klok, born in Amsterdam, hit back: “Maybe in the past few years, Vietnam have only played with native Indonesians. Now they are scared after seeing how much Indonesia have changed.”
As it happens, more discussions are being had in Vietnam about going down a similar road. In September, for instance, the Brazil-born Rafaelson, who has broken goal-scoring records playing in Vietnam, was naturalized, although it remains to be seen if he will play for the national team.
The legacy between Indonesia and the Netherlands is admittedly more complicated than the Vietnamese relationship with Brazil. In 2022, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte issued an official apology to Indonesia after a study found that the Dutch army had used previously unacknowledged “systematic and extreme violence” during Indonesia’s struggle for independence. Yet it seems that some of the rancor and bitterness about Dutch colonial-era violence and exploitation has dissipated.
Indonesian fans have embraced the newly naturalized players. The team is selling out stadiums, and the new crop of foreign-born players has already gained notoriety in the country. Defender Justin Hubner has grown his Instagram following from 5,000 to 2.8 million since joining the Indonesian squad.
For his part, Shin shrugs off the criticism, preferring instead to talk about his tactics and the trust he has put in young players. “These naturalized players have Indonesian blood,” he said in March. “Therefore, they deserve Indonesian passports and the right to wear the Garuda emblem on their chests.”
Though they are one of the most passionate fan bases in Asia, Indonesian soccer fans have suffered through decades of underachievement.
After former PSSI chief Nurdin Halid was imprisoned for corruption and eventually ousted from the role in 2011, Indonesia’s soccer community split into two rival federations and leagues. Chaos ensued, and in 2015 FIFA stepped in to suspend Indonesia from international play. The schism was eventually repaired and the ban lifted, but politics has continued to stymie efforts to promote Indonesian soccer on the world stage. In 2023, Indonesia was stripped of its hosting duties for the Under-20 World Cup—its first-ever global tournament—after the governor of Bali said that the Israeli team was not welcome.
In addition to mismanagement at the top, Indonesian soccer has also been plagued by issues at the bottom. Fan violence is a chronic problem, and there are few places in the world as dangerous to be a soccer fan. According to the Indonesian sports watchdog, Save Our Soccer, 78 fans have been killed in the country due to hooliganism since 1995. It is not uncommon for teams in the highest-tier league to arrive at stadiums in armored personnel carriers. Both inadequate and heavy-handed policing have compounded the violence. In October 2022, security forces fired tear gas at a domestic league game at the Kanjuruhan Stadium in East Java, and 135 fans died in the ensuing stampede toward the exits. The incident in part led to PSSI’s hiring of Thohir, who has promised reforms.
Amid such disarray, it is no wonder that the country has struggled to make its mark on the international scene. But now, for the first time in years, Indonesia is making headlines for what is happening on the field and changing what was a long and depressing narrative surrounding the sport.
This new-look Indonesian team has a real chance to make it to the 2026 World Cup, which will allow more teams than ever before to compete.
Forty-six Asian teams started competing in the region’s qualifier tournament, which began last year. Indonesia thrashed Brunei in the first round, then finished second behind Iraq in the next. The third round kicked off on Sept. 5, and the 18 remaining teams are divided into three groups of six. The top two from each will automatically qualify, and the six teams that finish third and fourth will advance to a fourth stage, in which they will compete for Asia’s two remaining spots.
Indonesia currently sits in fifth place in Group C. In its first two of 10 total games, it drew against Australia and Saudi Arabia, two Asian powerhouses. The team is not going to finish above Japan, the best team in Asia, and few would expect them to finish above Australia and Saudi Arabia, which both have six World Cup appearances. Games with Bahrain and China, rivals for fourth place, will be more crucial. On Oct. 10, Indonesia drew 2-2 against Bahrain, and on Oct. 15, it faces China, which has lost all three games so far.
Getting to the World Cup is exciting not only for fans but for the future of Indonesian soccer. The prize money and revenue generated by a World Cup appearance could be reinvested into grassroots organizations, youth development, and facilities, which could do wonders for the next generation of homegrown talent. In the meantime, PSSI officials hope that even better players in Europe who are eligible might become more open to the idea of representing Indonesia and their heritage.
“We’re getting stronger. You really do see us growing together as a team, and it’s really important that we believe we can achieve these results,” said midfielder Thom Haye, who made his debut for Indonesia in 2024. “Everything starts with belief first, and then I think you become stronger and stronger.”
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