What is Happening With Indonesia Football (Part 2)

At the close season of 2013 the old PSSI regime succeed to take over the Djohar Arifin era and PSSI secertary general Joko Driyono announced that the cancellation of the 2013 IPL play off final. Joko said that league had been cancelled by PSSI so there are no winners of the competition. He said 7 clubs elected will be valued for the the verification process to join the new unified league in 2014.

The 2014 ISL divided in to two groups based on the clubs geographical so they could minimazed the budget and only allowed to use 3 foreign players on the pitch. Four teams from IPL will participate, They are Semen Padang, Persiba Bantul, Persijap Jepara and PSM Makasar. The season was won by Persipura Jayapura and they also made a history by being the first club from Indonesia who reached AFC competition semifinal's in 2014 AFC Cup.

The promosing side of U-19 of Indonesia finally reach the real stage, AFC U-19 Championship which decide the Asian representative to the 2015 U-20 World Cup ended disastrously. Beaten three times by Uzbekistan, Australia and UAE, a team that Indonesia beat twice on friendly a year before. PSSI was blamed because they ruined the preparation of the team by held a tour around the nations. Ironically Myanmar, who had beaten by the same Indonesian team reached the semifinal and qualified to the World Cup.

Indonesia National Team U-19

For the senior side the Suzuki Cup at December was pretty much the same, another failure. Alfred Rield is back, all the senior force is coming but 4-0 beaten by the Philipines crashed the Merah Putih hope in to the semifinal. On April 2015, 2 weeks after 2015 ISL season running the Ministry of Sports and Youth suspended the PSSI after disobeying theree warning letters that send by the ministry.

BOPI, the Indonesian Professional Sports Agency doubt the eligibility of Arema Cronus and Persebaya. The original club was the one who had compete at the IPL and they are not admitted by the new PSSI. Finally FIFA suspended PSSI during the FIFA Excecuitve Comitee meeting on May 30 2015 until the situation is clear. So whith this sanctions Indonesia cannot take part on 2018 World Cup qualifying, 2019 Asia Cup qualifying and every regional competition and every age group such as SEA Games, Asian Games, U-23 championship, U-19 championship, U-17 championship.

Nobody knows when is this gonna end, bribe, match fixing, politician involve has been part of Indonesian football for years....

What is Happening With Indonesia Football (Part1)

After the euphoria reaching the final stage of 2010 Suzuki Cup, the Merah Putih has freefall  and finally hit the rock bottom in the 2015. Yes, eventhough we didn't win the competition but the team got the attention from the media all over the country. Everybody knows who Irfan Bachdim is, who Christian Gonzales is, who Bustomi is at that time. PSSI (Indonesian FA) is dominated by some dirty politicians from the "yellow party" used the fame of the players in order reach their potential of the 2014 Presidential Campaign.

Right before the Suzuki Cup on 17 September 2010, 20 Indonesian football clubs gathered together by local businessman named Arifin Panigoro wo concerned of conditions football clubs in Indonesia then took a joint iniatiave to establish and declare a new league called Liga Primer Indonesia. After all only 3 clubs that joined them (PSM Makasar, Persebaya 1927 and Persema Malang) and the rest was ew clubs formed by the consortium. The consortium funded the clubs to attract new foreign players and coaches.

Arifin Panigoro(4th from the right) among the founding fathers of LPI

Jose Basualdo, Wim Rijsbergen and Lionel Charbonnnier were among the coaches and for the stars player they invested in former Fiorentina and Brazil midfielder Amaral, former Cameroonian player Alain N'Kong, former Aston Villa and England one cap wonder, Lee Hendrie, former Ajax Amsterdam players Pascal Heije and Richard Knopper were just some of them.

Lee Hendrie when he signed with Bandung FC

As thing are getting chaos on April 1 2011, FIFA Comitee Emergency Comitee task PSSI for presidential elections of PSSI and banned the old contender George Toisutta (the Indonesia Armed Forces general), Arifin Panigoro (LPI Founder) and Nirwan Bakrie ( vice president of the current PSSI and brother of Aburizal Bakrie). Finally Arifin Panigoro and co has took over the PSSI old regime and put Djohar Arifin as the Chairman of the PSSI.

Troubles comes to them 3 clubs has been disqualified because more than one game walkout,the financian becoming an issues and 2 clubs which was Arema and Persebaya also disqualified after accused cloning the club(the real one is in the ISL). ISL....still running by the old regime of PSSI who cannot accept their fate. So that makes the Indonesian Football has two professional league running in that season which was ISL and LPI.  In the next season LPI is changed by the consortium in to IPL and some of PSSI clubs moved in to their league so the consortium decided to cut down the clubs that they made. The Consortium promised to the clubs that join them will be funded and now they have 12 clubs and ISL still running.

As for the national team, 2012 Suzuki Cup was turned out badly for Merah Putih as they failed to reach the semifinal after the ISL player which has better player than the IPL not allowed to join the national team by their clubs. The good thing is the U-19 really did well on the 2013 U-19 AFF championship as they won it with attractive style of play and created new local hero on Evan Dimas. A month after the AFF, they also qualified in to AFC U-19 championship by beating strong contender, South Korea 3-2 by Evan Dimas hat-trick.

Things That I Missed

So its been a while i've been gone from my blog and i realized that so many things has happened recently. The Thai teams is getting dominant in every level of competition among the Southeast Asia, they won the  2014 Suzuki Cup and 2015 SEA Games, and also reached 4th in the 2014 ASIAN Games...woooww what an achievement they got. Myanmar also made a huge success by qualified in to U-20 World Cup that just held in New Zealand this month, the football development has been run very well since the effort by their govenrment by once isolated nation.

Thailand NT that won the 2014 Suzuki Cup

Although the result may not pleasing (beaten by USA 1-2, by Ukraine 0-6 and NZ 1-5) but hey they could be future stars for the region in the next few years. Philipines or we knows as Azkals also almost reach the 2015 Asia Cup. Unlike other countries that still fought in the qualification phase the Azkals entered the AFC Challenge Cup in order to play in Asia Cup among the emerging countries such as Afganistan, India, North Korea, etc. Palestine won against them in the final by 1-0 so there are no Asean representative there.

But the future looks bright for them  as Azkals won the two early games in the 2018 World Cup Qualification against Oman and Yemen. I will talk about this more in the next post. Now its time for Timor Leste who just reached the second round of the 2018 World Cup Qualification for the first time in the history by beated Mongolia in the first round. A lot of new "Brazillian Blood" been injected to this team so no wonder they got in to this stage.

Move to the next Timor Leste, we got Indonesia!! Yeah the country i'm rooting for. It's been pretty sad to see Indonesian football these days. It was confirmed that Indonesia have been excluded from the qualifying competions after suspended by FIFA because of the govenrment interference led by Minister of Youth and Sports, Imam Nahrowi.

Please post your thoughts and questions below and pardon me for the English.

Mixed Players to Boost Asean Football?

Mixed players or some people say"naturalization players" are getting common is Asean football these days. Its actually a two different things though from my prespective. Mixed player is belong to players who represents the country who he has descendants and naturalization players is players who has living in a country for enough time to give the citizenship or just "be bought" to play for their national team.

This trend has started in Asean since 2002(cmiw) when Mirko Grabovac and Daniel Bennett played for Singapore at AFF Cup and two years later Itimo Dickson and Agus Casmir joined them and broght glory at the 2004 AFF Cup. However for small population country like Singapore it sounds make sense to strengthen their squad with bunch of foreign players but now adays the idea has spread across the region.

Take a look at Phillipines football team, the squad is consist of 90% of mixed players. Until five years ago they are not even qualified for the 2008 AFF Cup and now they're number 1 in FIFA rankings among the Asean country. With the likes of Neil Eithridge, Carli de Murga, Stephan Shrock, Younghusband brothers and the financial back up by Dan Palami they're aiming to reach the 2015 Asia Cup.

The only "local" player is the goalkeeper Eduard Sacapano

While Indonesia, the biggest football nation in the region still struggling and recently banned the naturalization players in the national team. To me personally this action was wrong because all they have to do is just raise up the standard for players who has indonesian descent and willing to play for his new country. Yes Irfan Bachdim and Diego Michiels might lose their best performance but with the uncertainity of their team it is all make sense.

Sergio Van Dijk has already marked his name in Asia so no doubt about his ability. For Nigerian-Indonesian Greg Nwokolo and Victor Igbonefo has been first choice as well at the national team though. Stefano Lilipaly indeed has a tough time at his 2nd division Holland club Almere City but he could be star at the team. And also Ruben Wuarbanaran who dissapear for 2 years has back and in Indonesia to show people that he can play unlike the last time after signed with Barito Putera along with Tonnie Cussell who also willing to show that he still wants to play for Garuda.

Tonnie Cussell, Maitimo and Van Beukering

Lets move over to Thailand, Peter Laeng is half Swiss player who moved to Thailand to play for Bangkok Glass in 2009 and joined the national team under Peter Reid after Peter Reid left position in late 2009  he never called up again although remain in Thailand. Next we got Anthony Ampaipitakwong who has played in the MLS with San Jose Earthquakes and after a year and a half play in Thai League he doing well and so far played 2 times for his country.

The last one from Thailand is pretty high profile, Charyl Chappuis has played Swiss U-17 team that had won U-17 FIFA World Cup in 2009 along with Patjim Kasami and Haris Seferovic. He signed for Buriram United earlier this year and already succeed in his first year in Asia after winning every competition with his club except ACL and gave gold medal at the SEA Games.

Chappuis, number 4 in the middle

Malaysia already has Junior Eldstal who played such a major role last season at his club Sarawak FA and aim to be a key part in Harimau Malaya senior squad while Brendan Gan citizenship is not acceptable for FAM to acknowledge him to be local player after he signed with Kelantan FA for next season.

Even Cambodia also trying to compete in region after Germany Based forward who play for 2 Bundesliga FSV Franfurt Chunly Pagenburg made his debut against Guam in November. Last but not least Timor Leste also add many unnamed Brazillian to their squad.

There is no guarantee that using mized players or naturalization players will improve the overall quality of a team but its a good way to see new faces in our region afterall top team such as Spain who once had Mariano Pernia(Argentinian) and Marcos Senna(Brazillian) and Portugal still using the service of Pepe(Brazil).

Welcome to Asean Football

Hello reader,

World Cup Brazil 2014 is months away and it seems that Asean football is still sleeping. Once again our region passed a chance to participate in worlds biggest football competition.

The reason i made this blog is to bring information about Asean football especially Indonesian football in english.I felt ashamed that I could see many website that brings Chinese football, Japanese football, Korean football, and even Cambodian football in english but still not many blog or wesbite brought Indonesian football in english but i think will also make some articles in Bahasa Indonesia.

So this blog is about that. It’s about news, opinion, and comments on Asean Football, weather about the players, the clubs the league and the national team. So i hope you all would enjoy my blog. Cheers.