Thursday, April 04, 2013
The Fall Of Persema
When the Indonesia Premier League began in 2011 (then known as Liga Premier Indonesia) I wrote, half tongue in cheek, about how Persema were set to become the Manchester United, the Bayern Munchen of the new league. They had the big names, the glamour and the looks.
With coach Timo Scheneuman joined by the fresh faced Irfan Bachdim, Kim Jeffrey Kurniawan and others crowds flocked to their (away games) prompting screaming crowds gathering outside the hotel and hoping to glance their new heroes.
There may be nothing predictable in football but there is one constant in Indonesia. No one at the club would have a scooby how to build on that initial interest.
The season ended halfway through and Timo moved on.
Fast forward this season and Persema did a Cardiff; they changed colours, nickname and badge.
Fat lot of good it has done them. They have failed to play to games seeing the points awarded to the opponents, and now coach Slave Radovski, and players Leo Tupamahu and Anggo Julian have left the football club with the team second bottom.
They will apparently continue with this season having found a bunch of 16-21 kids to join the squad, who needs things like transfer windows in Indonesia, but it will be a long, painful season for them. Not that anyone will notice I guess, crowds are never the best at the Gajayana Stadium even when they were doing well.
With coach Timo Scheneuman joined by the fresh faced Irfan Bachdim, Kim Jeffrey Kurniawan and others crowds flocked to their (away games) prompting screaming crowds gathering outside the hotel and hoping to glance their new heroes.
There may be nothing predictable in football but there is one constant in Indonesia. No one at the club would have a scooby how to build on that initial interest.
The season ended halfway through and Timo moved on.
Fast forward this season and Persema did a Cardiff; they changed colours, nickname and badge.
Fat lot of good it has done them. They have failed to play to games seeing the points awarded to the opponents, and now coach Slave Radovski, and players Leo Tupamahu and Anggo Julian have left the football club with the team second bottom.
They will apparently continue with this season having found a bunch of 16-21 kids to join the squad, who needs things like transfer windows in Indonesia, but it will be a long, painful season for them. Not that anyone will notice I guess, crowds are never the best at the Gajayana Stadium even when they were doing well.
# posted by Me @ 7:44 PM 
