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Indonesia struggling to wake up
Eye on the ball: The Under-21 women’s soccer team plays a practice game at Jenggolo soccer field in Sidoarjo, East Java, on May 11
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ye on the ball: The Under-21 women’s soccer team plays a practice game at Jenggolo soccer field in Sidoarjo, East Java, on May 11. Thirty-six players are undergoing training as they vie for a place in the national team to participate in the AFF Championship in Thailand, which is scheduled for Aug. 15 to 27.(Antara/Umarul Faruq)
The euphoria of the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup in France has swept some parts of the world, inciting awe over the great skills shown by the female players. Players like the United States’ Megan Rapinoe managed to steal the spotlight for her role in the final match against the Netherlands.
However, all the hustle and bustle of the recently ended women’s soccer World Cup seemed to have no effect on Indonesia as the local women’s soccer team is still struggling to rise up from a long sleep.
The Soccer Association of Indonesia (PSSI) started to revive women’s soccer last year when the country was about to compete in the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta and Palembang, South Sumatra. Women’s soccer was among the 484 events in the Asian Games and, as host, Indonesia did not want to miss the chance to take part.
The country’s female players finished third in the group round and failed to advance to the knockout round after losing big to Taiwan, 4-0, and to South Korea, 12-0, despite winning 6-0 over the Maldives.
The team also stumbled during the qualification for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. It managed to finish second in Group D behind Jordan in the first round and advanced to the next stage, but its journey stopped in the second phase as the team became stranded at the bottom of Group A in the second round.
Grouped together with Myanmar, India and Nepal, the national squad did not collect one single victory and suffered nine deficit goals after losing 6-0, 2-0 and 2-1 to Myanmar, India and Nepal, respectively.
Commenting on this, soccer observer Anton Sanjoyo said the key problem was the lack of women’s soccer competitions, which resulted in an inability to produce high-quality players.
“The problem regarding women’s soccer in the country is quite classic and similar with men’s soccer. If we talk about the lack of achievement in the country’s soccer, this happens because we never have a strong senior team,” he told The Jakarta Post recently.
“Why does that happen? Because we don’t have a good competition. The current league is not good. We don’t have high-quality players produced by the clubs. The league keeps going but the quality of it, including the grade of coaches, referees and matches, does not improve. This keeps us on a low level,” he said.
The lack of competition in women’s soccer meant a talent pool was unavailable, he said.
A similar argument was also presented by a former national women’s soccer player, Mutia Datau, as she said the lack of regular competitions, whether on the national or regional levels, made it hard to produce a strong national team.
“We have to have regular competitions that reach the regional level,” she said.
Mutia recounted her memories from the “golden years” when she and her teammates reached the semifinals of the 1977 Asian Football Confederation Women’s Cup.
The team beat Japan in the tournament and finished in fourth place. In 1986, the national women’s team repeated its achievement by again finishing in fourth place.
“At that time, we could beat Japan and now they can win the World Cup [in 2011]. So, what have we been doing all this time? [Japan] doesn’t sleep. They take one step at a time and obviously get the government support,” Mutia said as quoted by the magazine Historia.
To make things even worse, a rejection of women’s soccer was recently voiced by a group of radical religious people in Aceh. Bolasport.com reported that the group, which calls itself the Communication Forum for Youth and Community Organizations, recently demanded that no players be selected or sent to the Youth and Sports Minister Cup from July to September. The group claimed that “exploiting” women as soccer players was “an insult to the dignity of Acehnese women”.
The PSSI has vowed to resurrect a women’s soccer league by launching Liga 1 Putri this year. According to bolasport.com, the competition is to kick off this September with six clubs expected to compete.
This year, the PSSI also conducted the Pertiwi Cup, a women’s soccer competition at the national level that has been held since 2006. Participated in by 14 different provinces, South Sumatra won the competition after outclassing Bangka Belitung in the final.
Anton said several professional soccer clubs in Thailand also had women’s teams and they competed regularly. This has resulted in creating good players who can uphold their national team.
Thailand was the only Southeast Asian representative in the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup, accompanying Japan, China and South Korea as representatives of Asia.
Right now, the country’s female squad is preparing for an Asian Football Federation (AFF) competition in Thailand in August. The team, coached by Rully Nere, is undergoing intensive training in Yogyakarta. Throughout its participation in the tournament, the highest achievement of the national team happened in the inaugural edition in 2004 when it finished in fourth place.
According to FIFA’s Women World Ranking, Indonesia resides in 86th place.
