Since 2019, Chinese men's football has opened a new chapter of naturalized players. At that time, the naturalization heat wave swept through the country, with Guangzhou Evergrande as the forerunner, absorbing seven naturalized new players in one go, followed by Beijing Guoan, which also brought in two naturalized players, and Shandong Taishan, which welcomed their first naturalized player. Of these seven naturalized players from Guangzhou, Golat is ineligible to represent the national team due to his stay outside the country for more than five years, while 36-year-old Luo Guofu is committing himself to the arena of beach soccer. Allan is currently playing for Qingdao West Coast, Ackerson is playing for Chengdu Rongcheng, Fernando is playing for Shandong Taishan, Jiang Guangtai has a place at Shanghai Harbor, while Xiao Tao has returned to Beijing Guoan.
On the whole, the naturalization results have been mediocre. Undeniably, this is closely related to the utilization strategy of the successive head coaches. During Li Tie's tenure, the naturalized players were limited in their play and did not have many chances to play. During Jankovic's era, naturalized players were almost marginalized in official matches and thus were ineffective. However, under the guidance of Ivankovic, the naturalized players were fully utilized.
Currently, naturalization has become a major trend in world football. For Chinese men's football, if you want to achieve rapid transformation, naturalization is a feasible way. However, the Chinese Football Association (CFA) is still in a wait-and-see situation on the issue of naturalization, lacking substantive initiatives.
