Nico's natural choice: China

Lippi resigned as coach in January after failing to qualify Team China for last year's World Cup in Russia, but returned to the helm earlier this month.

Italy's 2006 World Cup-winning mentor, who led Evergrande to three CSL titles and one AFC Champions League crown from 2012-14, looks set to give Yennaris his national team debut when Team China faces the Philippines in a warm-up on June 7 in Guangzhou.

China has reached the World Cup only once, at the 2002 edition jointly hosted by Japan and South Korea. The team exited without scoring a goal or registering a point.

Chinese media reports suggest Lippi would also like to call up the CSL-based strikers Ricardo Goulart and Elkeson, but unlike Yennaris, the Brazilians have no Chinese ancestry.

Fans are broadly supportive of the move to include Yennaris, but are skeptical of naturalizing players with no family links to the nation.

"I don't think it's a good idea to bring in players without any Chinese ancestry," said Zhao Wen, leader of a Beijing Guo'an fan group. "Culture-wise and emotionally, it's hard for the fans to see Chinese soccer represented by totally non-Chinese players, no matter how competitive they are."

Observers say there's nothing wrong with the naturalization effort at the club level, but the country needs to focus on the real business of cultivating its own young talent to build solid international prowess.

"Naturalization might be a quick fix for a club at the league level, but how big a difference they can make on the international stage is up in the air," said Gong Lei, former coach of CSL club Beijing Renhe.

"We need to stay committed to the basics of developing our youth system, from school campuses up, and have quality tests of homegrown players in the league."

Xu Yang, a former Chinese national midfielder, said the naturalization policy shouldn't obfuscate the real problems.

"It might help in the short term, but if we aspire to become a world soccer power decades from now, we need to start by plodding at the grassroots level by offering enough facilities, coaching and funding to nurture youth players, generation after generation," said Xu.