Right Back Crisis, Does Kluivert Trust Asnawi and the Sayuri Brothers?

As the Indonesian national team prepares to face China in the Group C match of the third round of the 2026 World Cup qualifiers at the Gelora Bung Karno Main Stadium in Jakarta on Thursday (5/6/2025), head coach Patrick Kluivert is facing significant challenges. This is due to at least two tactical issues arising from a crisis involving key players.

Up front, the absence of Marselino Ferdinan due to accumulation of yellow cards and Ragnar Oragmangoen due to injury has forced Kluivert to find a suitable replacement. Not only suitable, the substitution duo of Marselino and Ragnar must also quickly adjust with Ole Romeny who plays as the main spearhead.

The latest crisis has emerged for the right-wing back position. The primary choice, Kevin Diks, has just completed his final season with FC Copenhagen. Diks contributed to winning the Danish League Cup on Friday (30/5/2025) in the early hours.

The player who will join Germany next season with Borussia Moenchengladbach immediately joined the squad in Jakarta as of Sunday (1/6/2025). Given this situation, the chance of Diks playing against China is highly risky.

In addition to the lack of preparation time with his teammates, Diks has also just recovered from a hamstring injury. The 28-year-old defender has not played the full two games for Copenhagen.

The two strong candidates to replace Diks, namely Sandy Walsh and Eliano Reijnders, also cannot join the "Garuda" squad this June for different reasons. Sandy is sidelined due to an injury sustained in a Japanese league match, while Eliano has requested permission not to join in order to accompany his wife during the delivery of their second child.

"We (the coaching team) will make adjustments to the squad. We remain optimistic about the strength of the available team," said Kluivert in a press statement.

Given this situation, who is most deserving of the trust to be the core right wing-back against China?

Without Sandy and Eliano, as well as Diks who is not fully fit, it presents the best opportunity for local players to compete for a starting position in the match against China. Asnawi Mangkualam, Yance Sayuri, and Yakob Sayuri could be options for Kluivert to fill the right wing-back position in the 3-4-2-1 formation.

The selection of these three players is quite realistic. This is because China's strength is currently below that of Indonesia, so Kluivert has the potential to try other players. As a result, Diks can be more focused on being prepared to play fully against Japan on June 10, at Suita Stadium, Osaka, Japan.

Asnawi and Sayuri Brothers were not called up by Kluivert for the two March games against Australia and Bahrain. If you look at their performance data at their respective clubs during the 2024-2025 competition campaign, all three are very worthy of the Indonesian national team cap.

For example, Asnawi is the primary choice at Port FC for the wing-back position. He has become a mainstay for the Thai club in the Thai League and the AFC Champions League Two, with a record of 34 matches and two goal contributions. Not only does he play primarily on the right side, but Asnawi is also accustomed to filling the left wing-back position.

Specifically at the continental level, particularly in the AFC Champions League, Asnawi is irreplaceable at Port. He has played six matches as a key player. His passing accuracy per match is 82 percent, his crossing accuracy is also 45 percent, and he has a winning rate of four duels per match, which is quite good.

Defensively, Asnawi averaged 2.5 successful tackles; 1.7 interceptions; 3 ball recoveries; and 1.8 successful clearances in each match he played in the second-tier club competition in Asia.

The contract extension until the 2028-2029 season is also a signal of the value of the player from Makassar, South Sulawesi, to Port. It should not be forgotten that Asnawi is the captain of the Garuda squad when they made history by reaching the knockout stage of the Asian Cup in Qatar in early 2023.

Asnawi's competitors are two brothers who have become the brightest local players for the promoted team, Malut United, in the BRI Liga 1 2024-2025. On a national scale, only Egy Maulana Vikri and Beckham Putra, who are local players, can match the contributions and influence of Yance and Yakob in Indonesia's top-tier competition.

Yance has ended a year without being called up to the national team since May 2024. At that time, he also failed to play due to an injury sustained during the first training session at Field B of the Gelora Bung Karno Complex in Jakarta.

In his debut season at Kie Raha Stadium, Ternate, North Maluku, Yance played 32 matches. He recorded seven goals and three assists. Including Yance in the player roster is akin to having two players like Kluivert. This is because he can perform equally well in both the right wing-back and left wing positions.

In fact, Yance collected the first hat-trick in his professional career when he helped Malut beat PSIS Semarang 5-1, last May 16.

The impressive performance made the statistics page, Sofascore, give Yance a perfect rating, aka 10. He is the only local player to get a full score in Liga 1 this season.

There are only four players in Liga 1 2024-2025 who have ever received a score of 10 from Sofascore for a single game. In addition to Yance, they are Mariano Peralta (Borneo FC), Alex Martins (Dewa United), and Moussa Sidibe (Persis Solo).

Yance was able to record eight ball recoveries per game, two clearances per match, and six duel victories per game. In terms of attacking, Yance created one key pass per match and completed two successful dribbles per game.

On the other hand, Yance's twin brother, Yakob, plays a more attacking role for Malut. He is trusted by Malut Coach Imran Nahumarury to fill the position of winger. Nevertheless, Yakob is also not rigid in playing a more defensive role.

Referring to Transfermarkt's records, Yakob has played one game each as a right wing-back and a left wing-back since his early days defending PSM Makassar. In the era of Coach Shin Tae-yong, Yakob also played twice as a right wing-back for the Indonesian national team.

In Kompas' observations at the 2022 Qatar Asian Cup, Yakob was given the task of being a wing-back in the middle of the second half when Indonesia faced Iraq, Vietnam, and Australia.

Despite being a local player with the second highest number of goals (10 goals) behind Egy and contributing four assists, Yakob also boasts impressive defensive statistics. He recorded six duel wins per game, five ball recoveries per game, and one clearance per game.

Against China, it is time for Kluivert to dare to give trust to local players who have performed brilliantly throughout this season. Do you dare, Kluivert?