A SEA OF LOCAL TALENT

Thailand Games a good opportunity for nations to showcase home-grown players

- Deepanraj Ganesan

Indonesia's SEA Games team can call on Marselino Ferdinan, being marked by Lebanon's Hussein Zein (left) and Gabriel Bitar when he represented the senior side during a friendly in September.

(PHOTO: AFP)

Therdsak Chaiman, Kiatisuk Senamuang, Zainal Abidin Hassan, Noh Alam Shah and Bambang Pamungkas. More than a decade ago, they were the stars who led the way for their nations in Southeast Asian football.

Today, the list of notable names in the region's national teams include: Rafaelson (Vietnam), Song Ui-young (Singapore), Kevin Diks (Indonesia) and Paulo Josue (Malaysia).

Driven primarily by an aggressive push for naturalised and heritage players, the landscape of football in Southeast Asia has changed, with senior squads dominated by foreign-born players.

This trend has, in turn, elevated the importance of the SEA Games men's football tournament for local-born players. As the Dec 3-18 event in Bangkok and Chiang Mai is an Under-22 one and falls outside the Fifa window, all nine participating nations will rely heavily on homegrown players.

The tournament kicks off on Dec 3, with hosts Thailand taking on Timor-Leste and Vietnam facing Laos at the Rajamangala Stadium.

With the nine teams split into three groups, the three group winners and the best second-placed team across all pools will advance to the semifinals.

Group A comprises record 16-time champions Thailand, Timor-Leste and Singapore. Group B consists of Vietnam, Malaysia and Laos, while Group C has Myanmar, the Philippines and defending champions Indonesia, who beat the Thais 5-2 in a dramatic final in 2023 to win their first football gold since 1991.

Indonesia's senior team have also risen in recent times to become arguably the best in the region. They were the only country from Southeast Asia to qualify for the fourth round of the 2026 FIFA World Cup qualifiers.