Indonesia always participated in Asian Cup since 1996. I think we deserved our place in this Asian Cup. In past when Singapore NT doesnt have "naturalisation" player,it's hard for Singapore to beat other South east Asian country like Vietnam, Indonesia and Thailand.
I am really cons against this naturalisation issue. Look at Qatar, the Uruguay striker is their best player i think. Bahrain with their Nigerian player (Jaycee if i'm not mistaken). if this issue is not resolved by FIFA, in years to come we can see Argentina vs "Argentina" or Brazil vs "Brazil". It's sick.
That true we didn't beat these teams easily i remember having watched titanic battles with these teams especially in the SEA games matches but my grievance
is for now and this Asian cup.
I just don't feel that there should be 4 co-hosts for this tournament thats all, most
probably two co-hosts should suffice as since they have qualified automatically while we hadto slog it out in a tough group and didn;t make it, but by the look of things since most of the south east asian teams are doing well so far so this is a plus for our region as we have been lagging behind for so long as compared to our other counterparts in asia. This was not case in the 60 and 70s where our south east asian region had the most talented players in asia and were a major force in the asian region.
I am also not in favour of naturlisation of foreign players as the motive of these so called national players are more monetary than patriotism .However on pragmatic side this is a results based industry where if with the help these mecenaries the nationlal team does well that the general feeling is why not.
This will create interest and hopefully produce future stars in the making.
Singapore has only a very population compared to the rest of the neighbours therefore the talent pool is limited and the focus is more academic excellence than
sporting excellence so we have lost rising stars to the corporate world instead, but
things are changing so hopefully more locals will make up the national team.
Btw indonesia good luck for the upcoming games
