24 hours later

24 hours later ...

To be completely honest, I stopped watching live after the 75th minute. The stream stopped working, I sat there refreshing several streaming websites to no avail. I distracted myself by reading Demon Slayer… Hey, I’m in self preservation mode, I want to be a whole person and not be damaged mentally from the anxiety. This was my way of saving myself from the stress. At one point, the only way I could follow the game live was reading the live commentary on LiveScore and even that was slow.

I just got the chance to watch the full game today, 24 hours later, after the euphoria of last nights game and watching the highlights many, many times. Not to mention the random APT dances commemorating the win. In the end, there is a ray of hope, but the biggest threat to our chances of qualifying is… Look, the best description of the average Indonesian supporter is, Gegabah. I don’t want to start to psychoanalyze the whole population, it’s more an observation than judgement. So in saying that I hope to bring to attention several things that we may have overlooked from the game yesterday.

My ‘man of the match not named Marselino’ was Verdonk. I would argue that the true man of the match was Verdonk, but then again, calm and cool is extremely rare in Indonesian football. But 100% effort without mentally faltering is also rare, Verdonk showed that. Rewatch the game bruh, he was all over the pitch and just leading by example. He pulled up with a cramp at the end of the game. Absolutely beast of a player. Shout out to Ridho, he played well also.

I think it was the first time in a long while physically we were not completely outmatched, I guess the neutralization training regime is working well. No but honestly, everyone was in good shape,not backing down from a physical battle. It was fun to see there was a level of respect from a physical perspective.

The ref did an amazing job. I was rewatching it and he was under so much pressure from the Saudi’s. It was absolutely incredible the amount of pressure they exerted on the ref. If they had exerted that much pressure on Nethanyu maybe our Palestinian brothers and sisters would not be in such bad shape. But nope, they chose to exert that pressure on the ref. I think this is something that fans need to be aware of and prepare to support in the next match. We should come up with chants, like “Corruption, corruption, ref what would your mother say? Corruption, Corruption don’t be tempted ref” something passive aggressive for the next officiating team.

Look we need to come up with a more systemic and organized way to put pressure on the officiating team or the opposition. Not many refs could hold up like the Uzbeki ref did. It was commendable. We either need to start chanting, “Pressure Benjamin not the ref so our Palestian friends can live”. Its great that our supporters are no longer destructive, but would be cool if it was better organized and more meaningful than, “Kita harus menang”. I mean what kind of fixed mindset mentality is that?

Tactically it was brilliant from STY. The counter attack schemes worked well, maybe they need to take a play from the NFL and start learning wide receiver route running. There are two main points of feedback from yesterday’s match. The first, is the substitution strategy, STY was playing UNO but showing his cards. Everyone could see that he doesn’t have players he trusts. He chooses players that are fatigued, I believe he could have put on some more defensive minded players a bit earlier, but I guess he doesn’t have faith in them… which is like playing UNO open handed, it was a bit too obvious. The second feedback is the team and individuals didn’t have any schemes of organized time wasting. They were a bit too naive in the time wasting schemes. I remember Porto vs Arsenal last year, it was horrible matchup. Porto did an excellent job to make the match super choppy. I think we need to learn that.

All in all though, I regret not going to the match, it was a huge step forward for Indonesian football. I’m glad we took this step and mathematically we’re still there. The door is still open for us, but the fastest way that door will get closed is if we loose our awareness and think we’ve already won when we haven’t. It’s essential we maintain our consciousness and understand what went well and what can be improved. I hope you super fans take on this message and move on with it as “This is the way”. For me, it’s always the organization, as long as PSSI is led well and is well organized, I will support through thick and thin.

Well that’s it from me, I just wasted 5 mins of your time. But I don’t regret it one bit.

-Me