Emil Audero, Joey Pelupessy & Dean James: PSSI's "Naturalization Panic"?

Ahead of facing Australia and Bahrain in the third round of the 2026 World Cup qualifiers, the Indonesian national team will receive three additional naturalized players. However, the presence of Emil Audero, Dean James, and Joey Pelupessy is unlikely to have a direct impact on the “Garuda” squad.

Of the three players, practically only Emil has the quality to be a direct competitor for the main position. Emil's experience of a career spanning nine seasons in two Italian professional competitions is a guarantee of strengthening the goalkeeper position that has so far belonged to Maarten Paes.

Emil entered his professional career by undergoing training at the Juventus Academy. Although he only made one appearance for Juve at the end of the 2016-2017 season, Emil performed well when defending Venezia and Sampdoria.

His performances at Sampdoria helped Emil get recruited by Inter Milan to be Yann Sommer's backup goalkeeper for the 2023-2024 campaign. With Inter, Emil made his Champions League debut, then won his second scudetto.

However, Emil's performance was not satisfactory when he was brought in by Como, a team owned by the Djarum Group. The goalkeeper born in Mataram, West Nusa Tenggara, conceded 18 goals in eight appearances. This made him lose his main place from Como Coach Cesc Fabregas, then he was released to Serie B club Palermo.

Having failed to bring Palermo to victory after conceding two goals in the first two games against Spezia and Mantova, Emil finally recorded his first victory for Palermo by keeping a clean sheet one day after Erick announced his naturalization process.

Emil made six saves to help Palermo beat Cosenza 3-0. The result helped Palermo stay on track to enter the Serie A promotion playoff zone.

Of course, it is unfair to compare the quality of the Italian competition, where Emil has his career, with the United States League (MLS) where Maarten Paes plays for FC Dallas.

Emil's quality when referring to the experience of the team he defended must be recognized above Maarten. Emil trained with the legend and one of the best goalkeepers in the 21st century, Gianluigi Buffon, at Juve. Then, competed with the best Swiss goalkeeper today, Sommer, at Inter.

The Italian league, both Serie A and Serie B, has a tighter level of competition compared to MLS. Moreover, Italy is a country that prioritizes defensive play above all else, so each team will not just contract players to guard their goal.

In order to compare the actual quality, it is actually quite difficult to find a fair comparison if referring to the 2024-2025 and 2023-2024 seasons. The 2025 MLS edition just started, at the end of February, while in the 2023-2024 competition, Emil's playing minutes were very limited because he only appeared six times.

For that reason, the comparison is directed at the performance of both in the last season with the most appearances. Emil refers to his appearance with Sampdoria in 2022-2023, then Maarten is based on his appearance in the 2023-2024 season. At that time, Emil played 25 matches for Sampdoria, while Maarten played 30 matches with Dallas in the MLS regular season last season.

From the number of matches, Maarten's superiority is seen based on the quantity of clean sheets and save percentage. Maarten was able to serve five games without conceding, while Emil only kept five clean sheets in his final season wearing the Sampdoria uniform.

Maarten also recorded a 70 percent save rate on the 5.77 shots he faced per game. The 26-year-old made 121 saves on 173 shots on goal.

For Emil, he only collected 68 percent of saves. He anticipated 84 shots well out of 123 shots on target produced by the opponent.

However, if we refer to the quality of Emil's saves, they are much better. He conceded 39 goals from the 38.4 expected goals (xG) conceded he received. Meanwhile, Maarten conceded 52 goals from the 47 xG conceded. That shows that Maarten failed to reduce five goals from the opponent that he should have anticipated.

On the other hand, Emil also did not make a blunder. Last season, Maarten made two mistakes that resulted in goals for the opponent.

From their roles for team play, both have advantages that can be adjusted to the needs of Indonesian Coach Patrick Kluivert. Maarten is quite capable of distributing short balls with a passing accuracy rate of 76 percent.

Emil, on the other hand, can be relied on for pragmatic play because he is good at distributing long balls. Emil recorded 8.2 accurate long passes per game, while Maarten produced 5.1 accurate long passes per match.

Then, Joey does have a statistical record that is far below Indonesia's best midfielder at the moment, Thom Haye. The 32-year-old's long experience was the main reason Erick chose him as one of the naturalization targets when the effort to "recruit" Jairo Reidewald faced steep challenges.

Because, Jairo has recorded three games in the Dutch national team. Although Jairo can still move federations because the cap in the Dutch national team was created under the age of 21, but the naturalization process requires a long and winding process.

Although in the second half of the 2024-2025 season, Joey moved to the lower Belgian Second Division team, Lommel SK, Joey had a career in England with Sheffield Wednesday and Girensunspor in the Turkish League. This is proof that he has mature experience to strengthen the Indonesian midfield.

At the heart of the game, the Garuda squad is only equipped with Thom who has a fairly good professional career. Two other mainstay players, Ivar Jenner and Nathan Tjoe-A-On, are still having difficulty breaking into their respective main teams. Their age is still in the U-23 team category, so they need guidance from more senior players.

Referring to statistics in the 2023-2024 season, Thom has eight goal contributions for Heerenveen, while he scored no goals while defending Groningen in the Dutch Second Division last edition.

Joey also failed to create a single big chance. That was less than Thom's five big chances, and even less than Ivar Jenner's three. Ivar and Joey both play in the Dutch Second Division.

Comparing Joey and Thom's defensive roles, the advantage also belongs to Thom. He produces 1.7 tackles per game, 1.5 sweeps per game, and 0.4 shot blocks per game. Joey is only slightly better than Thom with a record of 1.1 interceptions per game and 0.2 dribbles passed per game.

Then, if we compare Ivar at the same level of competition, Joey is also far behind in terms of defensive records. Ivar produces 1.8 interceptions per game, while Joey only makes 1.1 interceptions per game.

Ivar's 2.9 successful tackles per game is far superior to Joey's 1.2 successful tackles per game. Ivar is also superior in two other defensive variables, namely sweeps (0.7) and shot blocks (0.2).

Joey's stats are only better than Nathan who failed to make a first-team appearance for Swansea, as well as Heerenveen. During the 2023-2024 season, Nathan only made four appearances, all of which came during a half-season loan at Heerenveen.

Meanwhile, Dean came purely to cover Calvin Verdonk who is irreplaceable in the left wing-back position for Indonesia. From the performance in the Dutch League this season, Calvin is absolutely superior to Dean in terms of defense.

Calvin excels through the barometer of interception, tackle, sweep, and shot block. Calvin's performance with NEC Nijmegen made him irreplaceable in 23 appearances. This also made Calvin always appear in Indonesia's six matches in the third round of the 2026 World Cup qualifiers.

However, Dean can also provide an alternative to Calvin's shortcomings. In fact, the 24-year-old Go Ahead Eagles player is much better than Calvin's current backups, namely Pratama Arhan and Shayne Pattynama.

Dean has the upper hand in attacking matters compared to Calvin. He has produced two assists in 18 games in the Dutch League, while Calvin has only recorded one assist.

Dean also created more chances thanks to the 26 key passes he produced. Meanwhile, Calvin created 23 key passes. Of those key passes, six were created by Dean. Meanwhile, Calvin only recorded two big chances.

If the Garuda squad needs a cross to pamper the attackers, then Dean is the answer. He has produced 1.1 successful crosses per match.

The three naturalized players only have a maximum of three weeks to complete the naturalization process until the transfer of federations in FIFA data.

Although the presence of the three further reduces the opportunity for local talent to penetrate the Garuda squad, hopefully they will be able to immediately fit with Kluivert's team and help Indonesia penetrate the 2026 World Cup.