In 1938 Indonesia, with their bespectacled captain, Achmad Nawir, went to the World Cup as the Dutch East Indies and “Dutch” should perhaps be put back in the title somewhere given all that has happened with their men’s football team this century. Patrick Kluivert’s appointment as the head coach on Wednesday has not come out of nowhere. After all, it has been said, a Dutch team needs a Dutch coach.

Of the starting XI who defeated Saudi Arabia in a November World Cup qualifier in Jakarta, eight were born in the Netherlands and more are coming. The PSSI, Indonesia’s federation, has embarked on a rapid naturalisation of European players eligible to represent Team Garuda through a parent or grandparent, a legacy of colonial rule from the Netherlands that ended in 1945.

“Sometimes we tease each other, not knowing whether we are playing against the Dutch team or Indonesia,” the Vietnam midfielder Do Duy Manh said before back-to-back World Cup qualifiers last March. Vietnam looked down on their near neighbours for years but lost both matches. “Maybe in the past few years, Vietnam have only played with native Indonesians,” Marc Klok, a midfielder from Amsterdam, said. “Now they are scared after seeing how much Indonesia have changed.”

The new additions rapidly improved a team that had long underachieved but spelled trouble for Shin Tae-yong, head coach from 2020 to last Monday, when the South Korean was fired. Results were fine. He leaves them in third in their six-team group, a point behind Australia in the second of the automatic qualifying spots for the 2026 World Cup. With six games down and four to go – the first in Australia on 20 March – Indonesia are in with a real chance of making the expanded 48-team tournament.

Shin’s coaching résumé (which includes winning the 2010 Asian Champions League with Seongnam and leading South Korea at the 2018 World Cup) is superior to his successor’s but then he is not a Dutch football legend. As more foreign-born players arrived, the more awkward it became for Shin, who does not speak English, Dutch or the local language and without his translators could not talk to anybody. “We see the need for a leader who is better able to implement the strategies agreed upon by the players, and who has better communication,” said Erick Thohir, the PSSI chairman and former Inter owner.

Many believe Shin has been hard done by. One thing Kluivert and his predecessor have in common is sons who play professionally and Shin Jae-won did not hold back when he heard the news about his father. “Let’s see how far you can go without him,” he wrote on social media.

“He has poured his heart and soul into elevating the Indonesian national team to this level. Over the past five years, Indonesia have climbed 50 places in the Fifa rankings and are third in the 2026 World Cup qualifiers, yet the coach is fired?”

Shin was popular – even the country’s former president Joko Widodo said as much on Tuesday. “I know coach Shin closely, and in my opinion he has a charming personality and a great way of interacting with people,” Widodo, who left office in October, said. “If you ask me whether I like Shin, of course I do, but like it or not, the decision has been made by PSSI.”

Many do not like it. At one time, Asian fans welcomed famous former players turning up but now all know that big names do not guarantee success. Doubts over Jürgen Klinsmann’s appointment in South Korea in 2023 proved to be accurate. Closer to home, Vietnam replaced their own successful and long-serving South Korean coach Park Hang-seo with Philippe Troussier in 2023 but the Frenchman was out just over 12 months later after the losses to Indonesia.

There are concerns over Kluivert, whose coaching experience pales against his stellar playing career. In international football, there have been spells as No 2 to Louis van Gaal with the Netherlands and Clarence Seedorf with Cameroon. He had two short stints in charge of Curaçao. Indonesia, from perhaps Asia’s most passionate football nation with 280 million desperate for success and who play in front of almost 80,000 in Jakarta, will be a little different.

Thohir got the job last year because the PSSI – a byword for barminess in the past – wanted a forward-thinking businessman who knew football. He hinted the team wanted to move to the next level tactically and there are those in Korea who would agree Shin can be limited in that regard. Thohir has said naturalisation is a long-term policy and the PSSI believes the presence of Kluivert, the former Ajax and Barcelona striker, will help persuade even better players from the Netherlands to give up Oranje dreams to don the red and white.

What happens next depends on results. There have been concerns about the extent of naturalisation. Hifni Hasan, a member of Indonesia’s Olympic Committee, told Shin to slow down last year after worries that local players are being overlooked.

If Indonesia get to the World Cup then much of this will be lost in the celebrations. Kluivert will become a hero and Thohir, a cabinet minister, could find himself on the path to the presidency. Failure, however, will not only raise the usual questions about the coach and the federation but also whether a team made up mostly of players born and raised overseas can represent this proud football-loving nation.