6 naturalized players of the Indonesian national team suddenly unemployed, 2026 World Cup ticket in danger

Swansea City FC (in the Championship, English First Division) has just announced that it will part ways with midfielder Nathan Tjoe-A-On, making him the 6th naturalized player of the Indonesian national team to be unemployed in less than a month.

Indonesia team in danger before the fourth round of Asian World Cup 2026 qualifiers

Nathan Tjoe-A-On, 23, was under contract with Swansea City until June 2026 but was released early by the Welsh club and left as a free agent. He joins centre-back Justin Hubner, striker Rafael Struick, midfielder Thom Haye, defenders Shayne Pattynama and Jordi Amat in having their contracts terminated early or not renewed by clubs across Europe.

Justin Hubner (red shirt) is one of six key naturalized players of the Indonesian national team who have been unemployed for less than a month.

Photo: Reuters

These are the naturalized players who regularly play as starters and are the pillars of the Indonesian team throughout their journey to the fourth qualifying round of the Asian region, to continue to nurture the hope of competing for the remaining two official tickets to the 2026 World Cup.

Therefore, the fact that they are unemployed and it is unclear when they will have a new club to join has caused the internal situation of the archipelago team to be very uncertain. Because this will affect the problem of maintaining the performance of the above players.

The fourth qualifying round of the 2026 World Cup in Asia, with 6 participating teams including Indonesia along with Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Iraq and Oman, will be drawn into 2 groups on July 17.

The teams will then compete from October 8 to 14 in two groups in the two designated host countries, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. The top teams in each group will win the remaining two official tickets to the 2026 World Cup. The two runners-up in each group will play a play-off (two legs), with the winning team advancing to the intercontinental play-off round to compete for the two remaining tickets.

Time is running out, as the Indonesian team plans to gather next September to begin preparations for the fourth qualifying round of the 2026 World Cup in Asia, which will include two international friendly matches.

The Indonesian team will suffer many disadvantages in its goal of winning a ticket to the 2026 World Cup.

Photo: Reuters

However, the fact that the key naturalized players spread across all three lines as above are unemployed will cause coach Kluivert to face many difficulties in calling up the Indonesian team list.

"Naturalized players are not automatically given a place to play. They have to play at their clubs and demonstrate their abilities and compete with local players. They have to demonstrate their high level of performance to be called up and given a place to play," coach Kluivert said after the Indonesian team beat China 1-0 on June 5. In this match, coach Kluivert used 7 domestic players in the starting lineup of the Indonesian team.

However, in the upcoming fourth round of the 2026 World Cup Asian qualifiers, the expectations for the Indonesian team are very high. Because this is a historic opportunity for them to seek a place in the World Cup, the presence of all the best players is needed. The incident of unemployed naturalized players has made fans of this country very uneasy.

According to CNN Indonesia , some domestic clubs are willing to recruit the above players to play. But Nathan Tjoe-A-On refused because he wanted to continue looking for opportunities to stay in Europe to play, possibly returning to the Dutch National Championship.

Similarly, Justin Hubner also wants to stay in Europe. Meanwhile, Rafael Struick, Thom Haye, Shayne Pattynama and Jordi Amat are considering the possibility of going to Thailand's Thai League 1, or Indonesia's Liga 1.

Source: https://thanhnien.vn/6-cau-thu-nhap-tich-doi-tuyen-indonesia-bong-that-nghiep-ve-world-cup-2026-lam-nguy-185250620113832996.htm