Jakarta Casual

The only one of the four sides competing in the Shopee Cup Qualifying Round I have seen before. Based out near the Vietnamese border, Svay Rieng have an eclectic bunch of officials with a Scottish general manager, a Spanish coach aided by a Cambodian and an Irish assistant!

Last season they won the Cambodian Premier League as well as the Hun Sen Cup so they are team with momentum.

Club captain is Takashi Odawara who has carved out quite a career for himself having played in the Philippines and the Maldives before turning his back on archipelagic nations and moving to Cambodia in 2022. 

As you'd expect there are a handful of Brazilian players and a Cambodian international who rejoices in the name of Texan born Cambodian international Nick Taylor.

One more player of interest. Lao international Bounphachan Bounkong arrived on loan last season from - drum roll - Young Elephants!

Young Elephants (Lao)

Initially a club in the mould of Young Lions/Harimau Muda but now a proper club in their own right. They won the double in 2022 and were league champions last season.

Singaporean owned, apparently the bosses fly down to their home country once in a while to buy football equipment at Peninslula Plaza!

They have a handful of foreigners from Brazil, Japan and Uzbekistan but most of the players are local, none of whom I'm familiar with!

Kasuka FC (Brunei)

Much prefer their full name of Kampong Sungei Kedayan! Won the Brunei Super League for the first time in their history. 

26 year old Liberian striker Leon Taylor has an interesting career path. Arrived in Myanmar at the age of 19, after playing for three teams inside three years he moved to Kasuka in 2020. 

In 2023 he spent half the year in Thailand with Nakhorn Sawan and the other half back in Brunei with Indera. This year has followed a similar path with the first fe months in Thailand at a low league club before returning to Brunei

They are coached by the experienced Ali Mustafa who has also had stints with the Brunei national side. Back in 2004 he was in charge of another local side, QAF and if you're wondering why I would mention that random piece of trivia, Aussie Robbie Gaspar was there at the same time!

Shan United (Myanmar)

Pretty dominant at home in the last few years having won the Myanmar National League four times in the last five years (Covid interrupted 2021).

Moussa Bakayoko is another who has had an interesting journey to South East Asia. Hailing from Ivory Coast, he has played in Morocco, Armenia, Republic of Irleand, England (Dartford, Havant & Waterlooville), Czech non league, Ivory Coast (Yippee!) and Kazakhstan before his (travel) agent found him a team in Myanmar!

Another name to watch out for is Efrain Rintaro, Brazilian born of Japanese immigrants he was with Osaka FC in 2022

# posted by Me @ 5:04 PM 0 comments

Selangor fans

With Johor Darul Ta'zim defeating Sabah 3-1 earlier today, they sit top of the nascent Malaysia Super League with five wins from five games. Are we already watching a procession to yet another title for the southern behemoth which has long outgrown the domestic game? What does their domination say about the rest of the league and, more importantly, do people still care.

Just flicking through earlier today I came across a quite remarkable stat. JDT have just three defeats in their last 125 league games! Do people still care enough about their local team knowing they are essentially playing for any morsels JDT deign to cast their way.

Let's start with today's game and the most important stat to help us understand the state of football - attendance. 11,569 saw Gustavo Bergson hit a 95th minute penalty to guarantee those three points. This was Sabah's third home game of the season. Their first against Penang drew 3,708. Next up were fellow East Malaysian side Kuching City and that game pulled in 5,141. So, obviously, for the Sabah fans they seem quite happy to come out to a game they're almost certain to lose with locals attracted by the glamour of the serial champions.

2018 22 19 2 1 47-9 59 9,997*

2019 22 16 5 1 49-19 53 5,632

2020 11 9 2 0 33-8 29  9,914**

2021 22 18 3 1 50-9  57 0**

2022 22 17 5 0 61-12 56 4,723

2023 26 25 1 0 100-7 76 5,331 

2024/24 After JDT played 5 games 7,324

* Records incomplete

** Covid hit season

Not particularly scientific I know and if I had more time I really could go through the 2018 and 2020 to get a more accurate figure but the completed seasons do show attendances holding up fairly well and if I'm honest that pleasantly surprises me. And, from afar, it is fair to say well-run Kelantan, Selangor and Melaka United would boost those figures. 

Sarawak fans away to PKNS

Malaysian football suffers from too many clubs which are, to be brutally honest, pointless. It also suffers from clubs which are poorly run. And of course a team so far ahead in terms of professionalism and infrastructure - yet for the most part fans still show a willingness to turn out and surely that is something savvy club owners could build upon.

# posted by Me @ 12:25 AM 0 comments

Why can't KL City attract crowds? Based in Malaysia's capital city, nearest rival is the far bigger Selangor but why has the club failed/struggled to build a relationship with its local community beyond the fact they don't win every game 7-0?

It's not as if the last few years have been a drought.

2017 Malaysia Premier League Champions

2021 Malaysia Cup Winners

2022 AFC Cup Runners Up

2023 Malaysia FA Cup Runners Up

And yet last season they averaged less than 2,000 per home game and here they are dishing out freebies for perhaps the biggest crowd of the season! 

Undoubtedly, not paying players on time with little explanation why does nothing for the 'optics' of the club but - we're talking about the capital city of a relatively thriving country where people love football (usually Liverpool and Manchester United though!). 

Malaysian football is crying out for someone to provide a serious challenge to them brash boys from the south, Johor Darul Ta'zim, with their deep pockets and superb infrastructure but the rest of the teams just seem to plod along pathetically, uninterested in developing. 

Perhaps instead of investing in clubs overseas, some rich Malaysian tycoon could challenge some of their wealth locally and help build a fully competitive where JDT are forced to battle their way to the title and not coast.

Or, maybe there are reasons why the rich businessmen aren't interested that go beyond football?

Either way, we are left with the somewhat humiliating spectacle of a club in the capital city which has struggled paying wages offering a few dozen freebies for a big local derby.

# posted by Me @ 6:31 PM 0 comments

The Piala Presiden will be going ahead after much humming and haaing. If any clubs were hoping to ease into the new season with a series of gentle friendlies, think again. There's serious money up for stake in this pre-season tournament and if a team should suffer a string of poor results, expect to see the dreaded 'pelatih harus dievaluasi' raise its ugly head.

The group stage in this edition will be held in Bali and Bandung with Solo hosting the semi-finals and final. Solo gets to host plenty of big games these days...

Previous Winners

2015 Persib v Sriwijaya 2-0 

2017 Arema v Pusamania Borneo 5-1

2018 Persija v Bali United 3-0

2019 Persebaya v Arema 2-2 0-2

2022 Arema v Borneo 1-0 0-0

# posted by Me @ 11:42 AM 0 comments

One player who would have been grabbing the headlines were the media more interested in local football and not food stalls charging extra for chilli sauce (gotta love The New Paper!) is Tomoyuki Doi.

With 30 goals in 35 games for Albirex Niigata and Hougang United, the striker tried his luck back in his native Japan and Albania before returning to Singapore at the start of this season where he soon rediscovered his goal-scoring mojo. Seven games in with Geylang International and he has 12 goals including three hat tricks, the latest against Albirex yesterday.

Doi is just one of a large number of young Japanese players at home in Singapore. Albirex Niigata have eight for example. Even Young Lions, notionally a team built to develop young players for the national team, have four on their books. Balestier Khalsa have three as do BG Tampines Rovers. Doi isn't alone at Geylang where he has six team mates from his homeland. Tanjong Pagar United have a couple and Hougang United have just the one. Just DPMM and Lion City Sailors have resisted the urge to turn Japanese. For now.

Doi makes the headlines but others are worthy of mention to. Young Lions are mid table, well 6th, in part thanks to the goals of 24-year-old striker Itsuki Enomoto. The prowess of Kodai Tanaka in front of goal and the guile of Riku Fukashiro have been instrumental in Balestier Khalsa's good start to the season

And these players are not here to make up the numbers. Four of the top five scorers as I write are Japanese. Four of the top 10 assist providers too!

How many of these players could earn a crust in the JLeague is a different story of course. Doi had little impact in his short stint in J2. 

Now that I'm reaching the end of this piece I'm not sure what conclusions we can draw. That Japan produces good, well rounded professional footballers? Fair point. That there are too many foreigners in Singapore to the detriment of local talent? Another fair point. But good payers, especially prolific goal scorers, should be cherished no matter where they come from and if players like Doi and Enamoto put extra bums on seats then all good, right?

I guess at the end of the day, as fans we can just sit back and enjoy the talent we have in front of us and not think too deeply on the whys and the wherefores - leave that to the administrators, officials and coaches.

# posted by Me @ 2:43 PM 0 comments

I've gotta say, these crowd figures aren't the best, are they? Just Persija and Persib averaged more than 10,000 per home game.

There were some mitigating factors - there are always mitigating factors aren't there?

A number of clubs, including Persib and Bali United suffered from fan boycotts, ostensibly due to admission prices but it's funny how the stay-aways return when the team is winning.

The Kanjuruhan Tragedy continues to cast a long shadow over the domestic game. Arema, who once took 60,000 to Jakarta to see them win the league, averaged around 130 at their home games some of which were played in Bali. And in the wake of the tragedy where innocent fans were killed trying to escape tear gas, away fans continue to be banned.

Reigning champions PSM played their home games initially in Pare Pare, about three hours north of Makassar, before ending the season on a different island in Balikpapan where they ground shared a while with Borneo.

RANS Nusantara, one of a new breed of vanity clubs, averaged 54 per home game while another, Dewa United, managed 606! Hardly surprising, the game I was at, I saw nowhere selling tickets! Relegated Bhayangkara will grace Liga 2 with their 300+ fans - hard to believe they were Liga 1 champions in 2017!

Undoubtedly clubs like Persis, Persebaya, PSS and PSIS can pull in much bigger numbers as can Bali United, Persita and a settled PSM.

But recent years have seen so called die hard fans quick to call for boycotts at perceived slights rather than getting behind their team at every home game.

God knows, Indonesian clubs struggle with cash flow at the best of times. Surely fans need to be filling the stadium, if it's local(!) and doing their bit to support their team rather than calling for people to stay away for flimsy reasons?

And clubs of course need to do more to engage with supporters and persuade them to come week in, week out. It's daft that a professional league has clubs than genuinely don't care if anyone watches them or not! 

# posted by Me @ 7:40 PM 0 comments

I may have mentioned once or twice the lack of forward planning that exists in the corridors of power in Indonesian football. There are separate bodies which look after the league (LIB) and the national team(s) (BTN) and from the outside it looks like they don't communicate too often. This explains why the league will continue while the national team is competing in the AFF Championship or attempting to qualify for the World Cup.

But now...wow! 

At a recent meeting the LIB put forward a three year schedule which took into account the national team's requirements as well as domestic affairs. This is revolutionary stuff! In theory, one season will morph effortlessly into another one with teams able to budget accordingly, much like they do in the rest of the world. Hopefully, it means no more last minute changes to fixtures to accommodate internationals.

It's early days of course and I have yet to see any meat on the bones but eliminating uncertainty has to be a good thing for national team coach STY, Liga 1 and everyone involved in forward planning and it sets out a bold marker for the future.

Ah yes, the future. Notice the plan covers the next three years. Call me a hoary old cynic but could that be because that is what remains of the current PSSI head's time in office? 

# posted by Me @ 11:38 AM 0 comments

For me, football is football. It matters not one jot if I'm watching a Champions League game between Inter and Real Sociedad or dropping down the pyramid to see Southwell City entertain Newark Town in a local derby. It's all about the experience, the atmosphere, the day out. In an ideal world, it would be following the Arsenal home and away but the ballot has ended any notion of being a fan and now, as a customer, I can pick and choose my games.

In Indonesia, people would be surprised to meet a bule who went to local football and local football fans would be surprised to meet a bule who went to Liga 3 games. I would be asked if I was a player. Or a coach. People would want their photo taken with this strange creature. Others would ask what is Liga 3 and to be fair that is a bloody good question!

You know when you see those shaky YouTube videos of match officials being attacked? They're probably Liga 3 games! But beyond the personal safety of men with whistles, Liga 3 is a logistical nightmare, even in a normal season.

Persijap fans at the 2020 Liga 3 Final

Normal season? The 2020 season ended in December. The following season was cancelled due to Covid. The calender was switched for the 2021/22 campaign. 2022/23 was cancelled following the Kanjuruhan Tragedy. So, yeah...normal!

So, with a tip of the hat to the indefatigable chaps who update the Wiki pages, let's get up close and personal to the third tier of Indonesian football and find out what all the fun is about!

The 2023/24 season ended in June with Adhyaksa Farmel defeating Persibo 3-2 in the Final in Cibinong after extra time. It marked the end of a campaign which had started back in August and gone through a number of rounds.

First up was the Provincial Round. Don't expect to find a fixture list, everything depends on the provincial football associations and out there in the boonies the writ of Jakarta is very far away - things get done at the whim of local officials. 473 teams started out in the Provincial Round from Aceh in the west to Papua in the east.

After the regional phase, 80 teams went on to what is called the National Round and they were drawn in to 16 groups of five teams each. Group A for example was held at the recently renovated, and renamed, Benteng Reborn Stadium in Tangerang and featured hosts Persikota, Kartanegara (East Kalimantan), Persab (Central Java), MBS United (Riau) and Persidago (Gorantalo). They played each other once and the top two in each group went to the next round.

Then on it's like any other competition. The 32 are divided into eight groups of four where they play each other once. Top two go on to the next round where they are still in groups of four. The semi final stage if you like has two groups of four with the teams finishing top going on to the final to decide the Liga 3 Champions. The top three in each group earn promotion meaning the 2024/25 Liga 2 season will see Adhyaksa Farmel (Liga 3 Champions), Persibo (Runners Up), Dejan, Persekas, Persikota and Persiku added to its ranks. 

Easy, innit?! 

Interestingly, all six newly promoted sides are based in Java. 

Persikota fans

Farmel, who were based in South Tangerang, won back to back titles having won the Banten Provincial Round in 2023. Another Banten based side is Persikota who find themselves back in Liga 2 after many, many years in the wilderness and who knows...could we see the Tangerang Derby revived in the near future?

Liga 1 and Liga 2 are slated to start in August. As for the new Liga 3 season...

If you were able to track down fixtures, if you were flexible and if you had the patience then following Liga 3 games would be a groundhoppers wet dream. For me, I'm at the age where, tempting though bouncing round the roads of North Sulawesi may once have been in search of elusive fields, I'm happy enough with anything relatively close to Jakarta!

# posted by Me @ 12:13 PM 0 comments

As I prepared to watch yesterday's Singapore Premier League game between Lion City Sailors and Albirex Niigata, it dawned on me I hadn't seen a league game in Singapore for eight years and it's fair to say much has happened in my absence.

The White Swans have since won the league six times along with a number of cup triumphs as well as Community Shields. They have dominated the Singapore league in much the same way SAFFC did at the start of the 21st century and it's fair to say beyond a few whiney tweets where I bemoaned these upstart crows, their success has passed me by.

Their consistency is worthy of respect - it's not as if they've achieved it by signing £50 million players and sticking them on the bench. They pretty much reinvent themselves each season!

And here we are in 2024 and it almost feels like we're at the dawn of a seismic change in the Singapore football landscape. Albirex are now a fully local club, hopefully with a name change, while Home are now Lion City Sailors, Singapore's first privately owned club.

LCS have started the season well while Albirex have struggled to find their rhythm but surely many fans heading to Bishan Stadium would have expected a hard fought game between two top teams.

What they got was a very public visceration of a once great side. The Sailors started on the front foot and never eased off the gas and you kind of felt sorry for the experienced Hassan Sunny between the sticks for the Swans.

Not too long ago he was being feted by China after his performance for Singapore against Thailand. Chinese fans rushed to his restaurant, others sent him money. As he sat dejected on the Bishan surface looking forlornly out at the huge swathes of grass vacated by his team mates you could excuse him from thinking perhaps he might wanna open a new restaurant in Shanghai.

The Sailors were happy to occupy the empty spaces and, prompted by Maxime Lestienne and Shawal Anuar, they took full advantage. Even when Anuar went off early, they never eased up.

People like to look for pivotal moments in football, usually with the benefit of hindsight. Manchester United for example beating Crystal Palace in the FA Cup Final 1990 and setting Sir Alex Ferguson off on his generational trophy haul or a team meeting at Arsenal in 1997 after losing at home to Blackburn Rovers - they would go on to win the double.

Only the history books, or in the case of Singapore football where there is little in the way of literature, Wikipedia, will decide whether those 90 minutes in Bishan brought the curtain down on Albirex Niigata's hegemony or gave birth to Lion City Sailors as the premier force but for those of us jaded by one team's title monopoly, it does add motivation to reabsorb ourselves in the league!

# posted by Me @ 2:12 PM 0 comments

Well, it looks like 2024 is gonna be the year when the much talked about ASEAN Club competition actually gets off the ground. Rather like the Bangkok metro, talking about an intra regional competition was great for column inches but surely it would never get off the ground? 

The Asian football nerd in me was at once drawn to the idea while thinking the logistics would prove to be an obstacle to getting it started. I love the idea of a Laotian club side rubbing tusks with a Singaporean side but among the wider football public, is there really any interest?

People are quite happy to stay up until stupid o'clock to watch the UEFA Champions League which benefits from wall to wall coverage and local media filled with generic agency produced columns but when it comes to the AFC equivalent there isn't that familiarity or name recognition to get the pulses racing.

When you add into the mix the short termism that too often surrounds club management who often struggle to get teams ready for the regular league games let alone the burden of further games, and travel, you can see the reasons for my cynicism. 

But, fair play, a draw has been made, a sponsor signed up and next month sees the competition kick off with a couple of qualifying ties

17/07/24 Young Elephants v Svay Rieng; Kasuka v Shan United

24/07/24 Svay Rieng v Young Elephants; Shan United v Kasuka

The respective winners of those ties will go into the group stage which commences in August and will go on to February 2025

Group A - PSM Makassar, BG Pathum United, Dong A Thanh Hoa, Terengganu + 2 

Group B - Cong An Ha Noi, Buriram United, Borneo Samarinda, Lion City Sailors, Kuala Lumpur City, Kaya Iloilo

You'd imagine the likes of Buriram United and Lion City Sailors won't be rattling buckets at their home games. Both clubs have deep pockets and both clubs seem to have no problem entering both the ASEAN Club Championship and the AFC Champions League!

With the new tournament due to start in just a few weeks a quick glance at the websites of some of the competing clubs shows no mention of their early games on their websites though mention was made on social media. 

Competitions, especially new ones, need hype and for the ACC to become a regular feature on the football calendar you would hope the clubs involved will do their bit to generate interest

# posted by Me @ 2:52 PM 0 comments

I'm not really interested in international football as a rule. I haven't really bothered with England since the late 1980s and rarely watch World Cup or Euro games but when it comes to the AFF Suzuki Cup I'm there. In fact I'm still gutted I didn't make a single game at the most recent one, the first time since 2007, though I guess some pandemic does offer me an excuse.

So, what is so special about the AFF Suzuki Cup? Well, for a start it means something. Games like Indonesia v Malaysia and Singapore v Malaysia have a meaning that transcends the region. I remember the 2010 Final in KL and  looking on in awe at the thousands of Indonesian fans at Bukit Jalil and they weren't all migrant workers or students. Flights out of Jakarta were carrying numbers of supporters and I remember the chill down my spine as I was waiting at the airport seeing other fans waiting patiently for their own flight north, proudly wearing their merah putih.

Then there is the sheer openness of the tournament. Out of the 10 competing nations only Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar and Timor Leste go into it knowing they don't stand a chance in hell of even reaching the semi finals leaving six countries believing they can genuinely lift the trophy. That's a pretty high ratio for an international tournament. Look at the AFC Asian Cup for example. Perhaps six teams fancy their chances each competition but most other nations, including those from ASEAN, are just there to make up the numbers.

Another factor that makes the AFF Suzuki up so special is nothing to do with football. Don't underestimate the change budget airlines have bought to the region. When I first arrived inter regional flights cost a small fortune, way beyond my lowly budget most of the time. Indeed, when Air Asia first came on the scene I remember watching some business expert on BBC World saying they wouldn't work because Asians liked to pay lots of money for things - I remember thinking at the time he'd never been in Foodland in Patpong where crowds of shoppers waved fistfuls of money off vouchers or Pizza Hut over the road where students and office workers alike competed to build the highest salad they could at the buffet counter.

It's a cliche but budget air travel really has brought ASEAN closer together. Again, when I arrived in Jakarta from Bangkok there was perhaps seven or eight flights a week between these two capital cities operated by flag carriers. Before Covid, there were five or six a day! And football fans grasped the opportunity with both hands, taking advantage of cheap fares to travel the region watching their nation do battle in the biennial competition and doing so fairly cheaply.

The rise of the internet has also helped increase awareness of the players involved. What self-respecting football fan in the region doesn't know of Chanathip or Safee Sali or Hasan Sunny?

Some may argue the AFC Asian Cup is more prestigious but is it? The Thais are the strongest team in ASEAN and have been for yonks but they have only got out of the group stage once, in 2019, and before that had failed to qualify in the previous two tournaments. What kind of prestige is that? Should fans be grateful they got to the knock out round before losing? What influential politician or federation official is going to want to be associated with 'honourable defeat'?

My Indonesian in-laws don't like going to air conditioned shopping malls. They are happy to do their shopping at a local market and get their food from a nearby warung or kaki lima. They don't feel a glitzy shopping mall rammed with shops selling overpriced scents and coiffured hi-so ladies is for them and they are happy in the familiarity of their own world. In a way that is ASEAN football. The AFC Asian Cup is for the likes of Japan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, South Korea, Qatar, Iran and Australia, nations with the resources and facilities to aim high. Where's the prestige in being whipping boys for the rich and powerful?

# posted by Me @ 4:50 PM 0 comments