When Indonesia Says Goodbye to Local Strikers: John Herdman and the Diaspora Bet

On 14 September 2026, Indonesia's 23-man squad for the ASEAN Cup was announced. Four local strikers — Hokky Caraka, Ramadhan Sananta, Septian Bagaskara and Eksel Runtukahu — were absent. Up front, Ole Romeny suddenly faced direct competition: Mitchell Baker. On the wings, Luke Vickery was projected as a new option alongside Ragnar Oratmangoen.

There are numbers that never appear on a stats sheet; they live between two touches of the ball. Here, the untabulated number is four. Four local strikers removed at once, for a tournament in which Indonesia is considered a leading contender. I sat in front of the squad file, circled each name, and asked myself: is this a tactical decision, or a political statement about Indonesian football?

Context: An older current that has finally risen

I have followed Southeast Asian football from Singapore for years, and Indonesia's naturalisation programme is no overnight story. Since 2026, the PSSI has been bringing in Indonesia-eligible players born in the Netherlands. This time, the scale is different. Not a handful of names, but a structural spine: Ole Romeny, Thom Haye, Ragnar Oratmangoen, Dean James, and now Mitchell Baker, Luke Vickery and Dion Markx.

Compared with traditional rivals Thailand and Vietnam, Indonesia is taking a path neither can easily copy: a Dutch-Indonesian diaspora network that Thailand and Vietnam simply do not possess. In sports economics, this is called a "structural advantage that cannot be bought in the short term."

But every advantage carries a price.

The core: The shift at centre-forward is a signal, not an event

Reading the list closely, I was not shocked that Mitchell Baker was called up. I was shocked that four local strikers were all discarded at once. In football, dropping one striker from a camp is normal. Dropping all four in the same position, for the same tournament, is a strategic decision.

Baker's profile suggests a very different striker type from Hokky or Sananta: taller, stronger in the air, moving off the ball in a European mould. This fits the hypothesis about how Herdman views the ASEAN Cup — a tournament of duels, of matches split by physicality and contact, not a stage for a small technical striker to shine through short combinations.

On the flanks, Luke Vickery alongside Ragnar Oratmangoen hints at a direct wide-attacking structure, possibly a 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1 built on pace and 1v1 ability. The absence of any local wing option indicates Herdman no longer wants slow possession recycling on the flanks.

A season is not the sum of 38 matches; it is the repetition of 17 forgotten passes. For Indonesia, the season is the ASEAN Cup, and Herdman is choosing vertical passes over elaborate touches.

But one detail Indonesian media has barely noticed: both Jens Raven and Mauro Zijlstra — two young naturalised strikers — are also absent. This is not a total naturalisation revolution. It is a naturalisation revolution selectively shaped by physicality and immediate readiness. Herdman is not building for the future. He is trying to win now.

The contrarian angle: The real worry is not the dropped local strikers

All the analysis is rushing towards the attack. In my view, Indonesia's biggest loss at this ASEAN Cup lies deeper: Jay Idzes. The captain was injured playing for Sassuolo against Juventus, and his absence creates a double gap — losing a Serie A centre-back, and losing the reading of the game from the back line.

In years as a data consultant, I learned a painful lesson: teams that lose their captain right before a major tournament tend to struggle organisationally in the first 20 minutes of every match. Not because the replacement is poor, but because the commanding voice vanishes exactly when pressure rises.

Here is the contrarian point: the "local strikers dropped" story sells papers, but Indonesia's real problem is defensive organisation without Idzes. If Herdman's team loses, the media will blame Baker and Romeny. But the data I have seen from captainless national teams shows the fault usually lies in defensive structure, not in the shots.

As for Persib Bandung refusing to release players because of their ACL 2 schedule: this is a grey zone in FIFA rules. Outside the international match calendar, clubs are not obliged to release players. Persib is not breaking any rule. But it means the Indonesian national team is being eroded by the very growth of its own domestic club football.

What I learned from the stands

In 2026, when football stopped during the pandemic, I volunteered to analyse an under-19 women's team that played only 12 matches all year. I learned that the signals that truly matter are rarely in the data export. In Indonesia right now, the important signal is not the four dropped strikers. It is Herdman's words: "I think we must promise that we will give everything we have."

That is the language of a man lowering expectations. A coach who believes in his squad talks about winning. A coach managing risk talks about effort.

When Arnold Schwarzenegger says he will be back, that is not a sporting promise. For Herdman, "give everything" is a similar promise: short, safe, and revisable after the tournament.

What to watch in the next round

This ASEAN Cup is not just a tournament. It is a test of a naturalisation strategy nearly a decade in the making, and a measure of a bigger question: can a nation import national-team quality from its diaspora without waiting for its domestic academy system to mature?

If Indonesia win, people will call it vision. If they fall in the semi-finals, people will call it a betrayal of local strikers. Both conclusions are too simple for a bet this complex.

The thing I will watch is not Romeny's or Baker's goal tally. It is how Indonesia organise their back line in the first 15 minutes against their strongest opponent. That is where the truth will surface.