The Lebanon national football team has used footballers born outside Lebanon throughout its history with varying success. As a result of the dominance of clubs founded by the Armenian diaspora in Lebanon, between the 1940s and 1960s the national team heavily featured Lebanese players of Armenian origin. The established presence of Armenians in the team led the Lebanese Football Association (LFA) to naturalise several Armenian players born in Armenia during the 1990s to play internationally for Lebanon. Most notably, Vardan Ghazaryan was the national team's leading top goalscorer.
In preparation for the 2000 AFC Asian Cup, the LFA naturalised five Brazilian-born players of Lebanese descent; their presence was generally not well received, as it was felt that they did not improve the level of the team. Lebanon were eliminated in the first round without registering a single win. At the 2019 Asian Cup, nine of the 23 called-up players were born outside Lebanon; contrary to 2000, their inclusion was seen positively.