Don't Forget to Fix the Competition

If we look deeper, several issues still plague national football. The performance of the Indonesian team in the 2025 AFC U-20 Asian Cup and various riots that have marked the Indonesian League competition illustrate this.

The U-20 team, which is predominantly composed of players developed through domestic training and competitions, failed to meet the target of qualifying for the U-20 World Cup after being eliminated in the group stage of the U-20 Asian Cup in China. The team, coached by Indra Sjafri, was powerless against Asia's top teams. "Garuda Muda" lost to Iran and Uzbekistan and only managed a draw against Yemen.

The performance of the U-20 team proves that an instant approach, namely sending players to train abroad, cannot yield the expected achievements. PSSI should have learned from history that this method has always failed so far. Starting from the Primavera team, for instance, to the teams sent later, they have always ended up falling short of expectations.

The U-20 players who appeared in the U-20 Asian Cup for almost a year toured various countries. They trained in Italy and Japan, participated in a friendly match in France, and a tournament in South Korea. In fact, all of that did not make Garuda Muda able to compete with strong Asian teams.

The result was like a repeat of the story of the U-17 team that was prepared for the 2023 Indonesia U-17 World Cup. The Indonesian teenage players underwent training for more than a month in Germany. However, they were also eliminated in the group stage.

The various failures must be PSSI's evaluation to re-encourage coaching in the country. Players should not only train, but also get used to feeling the tight atmosphere of competition, both in the age group and later in the professional league.

For that, improving the competition is very important. Moreover, the Indonesian League competition feels increasingly backward because of the riots that are still happening and the decreasing enthusiasm of supporters who watch directly at the stadium.

The riots occurred when Persija Jakarta played against Persib Bandung in Bekasi, Sunday (2/16/2025), when a number of supporters committed violence against other supporters. Two days later, spectators invaded the field during the promotion playoff match between Persela Lamongan and Persijap Jepara (Kompas.id, 2/19/2025). We seem unwilling to learn from the Kanjuruhan Tragedy that killed 135 spectators.

Meanwhile, the decline in the number of Liga 1 spectators continues to occur. From an average of 10,501 spectators per match in 2017 to only about half, 5,039 spectators per match, this season.

Once again, PSSI should not only focus on polishing the national team with naturalization or simply centralizing training abroad. What is very urgent to do is to fix coaching and competitions in the country.