When Vietnamese champions Thep Xanh Nam Dinh took on Thailand’s Ratchaburi FC in their 2025/26 AFC Champions League Two opener on September 17, one peculiar statistic immediately stood out: of the eleven players who started for Nam Dinh, only two were Vietnamese – Kevin Pham Ba and Ly Cong Hoang Anh.
The rest of the starting XI was a foreign legion: Brazilians Caique, Walber, Lucao, Romulo da Silva, Caio Cesar, and Brenner; South African Percy Tau; Dutch full-back Mitchell Dijks; and Palestinian international Mahmoud Eid.
Even the bench reflected the same pattern. While several local players were named as substitutes, there was still space for two more foreign signings – English striker Kyle Hudlin and Norwegian winger Kristoffer Hansen – underlining just how internationally stacked Nam Dinh have become.
This approach has been shaped, in part, by Vietnam’s domestic regulations. Under V.League 1 rules, clubs can register four foreign players plus two non-naturalized players of Vietnamese descent for league play. Teams competing in international tournaments are given some extra room, with three additional foreign player slots available. Still, in domestic fixtures, a team can field no more than four foreigners at any given time.
The AFC Champions League Two (ACL2), however, imposes no such restrictions. Clubs are free to register and field as many foreigners as they like – a loophole that has encouraged sides like Nam Dinh to build what are essentially two-tier squads: one designed to meet domestic player quotas, and another stacked with imported talent to compete on the continental stage.
The result is a peculiar dilemma. Many of Nam Dinh’s highly paid international stars may only feature in a handful of matches across the entire season – the ACL2 group stage and, if they advance, a few knockout games – while sitting out most of the domestic campaign due to quota restrictions.
And Nam Dinh are far from alone.
Thai champions Buriram United have deliberately left Australian defender Curtis Good, Montenegrin full-back Filip Stojkovic, Spanish centre-back Juan Ibiza, and Serbian striker Nemanja Nikolic out of their Thai League registration list, saving them specifically for AFC Champions League Elite (ACLE) duty. True Bangkok United have done the same with Montenegrin midfielder Nebojsa Kosovic, while BG Pathum United have set aside Brazilian striker Raniel Santana and Bosnian centre-back Slavisa Bogdanovic purely for continental competition.
Perhaps the most striking example comes from Malaysia’s Johor Darul Ta’zim (JDT), who already enjoy a squad loaded with naturalized Malaysians of foreign heritage. Even so, the Southern Tigers still found themselves leaving out Frenchman Enzo Lombardo and Spaniards Raul Parra, Ager Aketxe, Celso Bermejo, and Teto from their Liga Super Malaysia squad, exclusively saving them for ACLE matches.
This growing trend reflects a wider shift across Southeast Asian football: clubs are no longer building single squads to compete across all fronts. Instead, they are assembling specialist teams tailored to different competitions. On one hand, this arms them with the depth and quality needed to go toe-to-toe with Asia’s elite. On the other, it raises questions about domestic league competitiveness, player development pathways for local talent, and whether existing foreign player quotas are still fit for purpose.
For now, though, the message from Southeast Asia’s top clubs is clear: domestic rules are one thing, but continental ambitions demand a different kind of firepower – even if it means building a second squad just to chase glory beyond their borders.