Jakarta Casual

Selangor coach B. Satianathan came out recently and said Singaporean and Brunei clubs could join the Malaysian league. Soon after, an impromptu poll on Twitter had a majority of respondents in favour of a Singapore team back in Malaysia. 

All very interesting and something that taps into an idea I've had rattling around in my empty head over the last few days.

But first of all I don't think Malaysia needs the infusion of foreign teams. What it does need is strong, local sides to put pressure on Johor Daul Ta'zim's hegemony and hopefully the move away from murky, nepotistic associations to more transparent clubs will be a step in the right direction. A strong, well run Selangor or Kelantan would do more for the competitiveness of the league than any team from Brunei can ever hope to achieve.

Just as leagues like those in Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam should be strong enough to stand on their own two feet, and would find any ASEAN Super League an inconvenient distraction from already crowded schedules, surely countries like Singapore, Brunei and the Philippines could do worse than to look out of the box.

Domestically Singapore has been dominated by foreign teams in recent years with DPMM and Albirex Niigata winning the last five seasons. The pandemic has hit the Philippines hard with Ceres Negros being sold and Global facing expulsion against the backdrop of a league that struggles for fans.

Would an ASEAN mini-Super League be a solution to that particular trio of countries, a BPS Super League?

By bringing together for example the top three Singaporean sides, top two Philippine and DPMM into a single league it would ensure the better teams would be playing against stronger opposition on a regular basis rather than the hit and miss affairs they tend to get in their local leagues.

Based upon the 2019 season it would mean Tampines Rovers, Hougang United and Geylang International would go toe to toe with United City nee Ceros-Negros and Kaya-Iloilo as well as MS ABDB from Brunei. 

Given the financial woes being faced by the Philippine sides, this mini league could be played in single city or venue and be rotated around the countries each year. Each team would play each other twice and like in a normal league, winner takes all.

Key though would be the respective domestic leagues would continue and at the end of their seasons there could be a play off between the title winners to decide which team gets promoted while the bottom side in the BPS Super League would be relegated. This would mean all clubs still have something to play for and the BPS Super League clubs could still compete in their own domestic cup competitions.

More importantly, it would need to have a strong management structure overseeing financing and marketing, much like the Indian Super League, and they would be responsible to go out there and secure the financing and sponsorship to ensure the league can be viable.

The Philippines has good players but needs well run clubs. Brunei has money. Singapore has infrastructure. By combining these resources and adding some stardust is there a potential recipe for a successful league that would attract fans and improve the game in their respective countries?

# posted by Me @ 2:40 PM 0 comments

http://jakartacasual.blogspot.com/2012/02/closing-fort.html 

# posted by Me @ 2:52 PM 0 comments

Interesting to see two experienced coaches taking the reigns of a lowly Liga 3 side

As for 2020, there have been suggestions Liga 3 won't even happen this season Personally I hope it does. I may not get to see many games but it doesn't half improve my geography!

Pictured below are PSKC fans at their Liga 3 2019 semi final against Persekat at Siliwangi Stadium. That was a story and a half! The game was initially slated for Si Jalak Harupat so off we set to Soreang only to find no-one seemed to have a scooby. With kick off time rapidly approaching we took a gamble and made for Siliwangi Stadium in Bandung. There was no communication from clubs or liga through social media but given the large number of Perssekat fans at Siliwangi, someone somehow must have known where the game was to be played...just not the general public!

In 2018 there were 28 teams in Liga 3 Central Java...who knows how many there will be in 2020. It's gonna be interesting to see how the experienced Kas does at this level.

# posted by Me @ 2:34 PM 0 comments

A businessman is looking to start a new club in Sidoarjo, East Java.

# posted by Me @ 3:49 PM 0 comments

KAMUNTING: The stocky body has become pencil-thin, the trademark thick moustache has turned grey, along with his hair. The muscular legs that sent fear into the hearts of strikers are now withered and he is in a wheelchair.

Wearing a grey Adidas shirt that matched his hair, he was calm, but the moment the subject turned to the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, the face of Datuk Namat Abdullah lit up.

Even at 74, the memories of that historic feat – when Malaysia featured in Olympics football for the first time – are fresh in his mind.

In 1971, Malaysia had topped the Olympics qualification group, beating South Korea (1-0), Japan (3-0), China (3-0) and the Philippines (5-0) to qualify for the Games.

“I still remember the Olympics very clearly, we were the first Malaysian team to qualify but there was no big fanfare about it, ” said Namat.

“In fact, we did not even get new jerseys or sparkling boots – we were just a bunch of kampung players ready for the fight of their lives.

“Nowadays, players have several jerseys to choose from but we did not even get one. I wore the national jersey that I had in 1968. It was a four-year old jersey but we wore it proudly at the Olympics, ” said Namat, who received RM10 daily as allowance during the Olympics.

“Even our hosts, the West Germans, noticed our old boots during training. I was using an Adidas La Plata, it was more than a year old. I used to repair my boots at a workshop in Penang Prison, where I worked.

“The Germans were gracious. They gave us two pairs of boots each. I remember we went to this Adidas shop there. Just imagine the excitement. We got to choose a six-stud boot for soft grounds and a 13-stud one for hard surface.”

The Malaysians may have been grateful to the Germans for the Adidas 2000 boots, but on the field, the fierce rivalry remained.

The little-known team from Malaysia comprising Namat and his brother Shaharuddin, M. Chandran, Othman Abdullah, Soh Chin Aun, Khoo Huan Khen, Hamzah Hussain, Wan Zawawi Wan Yusof, V. Krishanasamy, Ibrahim Salleh, Harun Jusoh, Wong Kam Fook, Ali Bakar, Mohd Bakar, Lim Fung Kee, Wong Choon Wah, Rahim Abdullah, Looi Loon Teik and Bahwandi Hiralal and led by team manager Datuk Harun Idris certainly made heads turn – even holding the hosts, who had big names like Ottmar Hitzfeld and Uli Hoeness, for almost an hour before losing 0-3.

The team, coached by Jalil Che Din, eventually finished third in their group – they beat the United States 3-0 but lost 6-0 to Morocco.

“Chandran was the captain, I was the vice-captain and we fought hard against West Germany, the first half was magical as we didn’t give them any space to score, ” said the defender, who with Chandran and Chin Aun formed an impregnable Malaysia wall.

“But they pressured us in the second half and we collapsed after the first goal (in the 56th minute).

“The referee said we played like Brazil, even the German players were shaking our hands, and patting our backs.

“Nothing is impossible for any players if they work hard at it.”

Namat (seated, second from right) with the 1972 Olympics squad.

It was the only time a Malaysian football had played in the Olympics. The team led by Chin Aun and legendary striker Mokhtar Dahari qualified for the 1980 Olympics in Moscow but Malaysia did not go because of a boycott.

“There has been so much spoken and written about Mokhtar and the 1980 team. Our team have been forgotten. But football is not about one player or hero. Everyone in the team is equally important, ” said Namat.More importantly, Namat remembers the wonderful ties he had with his team members although they were of different races and religions.

“We ate together, visited one another.

“We were a family and there was no one better than the other.”

When his playing career ended, another door opened as he took up coaching with the national team but that did not last long.

“Players need to respect their coaches. If there is no discipline, it will not work. I was frustrated as a coach as not many listened and I gave up, ” said Namat, who then decided to play tennis for Penang Prisons before eventually giving up competitive sports.

The years have taken their toll as his body has grown quite fragile, especially after a stroke. He was diagnosed with intestinal cancer two years ago.

But the years have also brought him much experiences, and Namat said Malaysia should not give up on striving for excellence at the highest level and believed there are ways to restore the glory days of Malaysian football.

“We can revive leagues at different levels in the country. There were many leagues in districts and states before, ” he said.

“Juniors need to have a thriving league too.

“There are many coaches now, but they should not just stand outside the field and give orders. They should not cekak pinggang (hold their waists) but turun padang (get on the field). There are more specific coaches in the team now. Hopefully, they will not outnumber the players, ” he joked.

Seriously, though, what he would like to see is more quality players and passionate fans.

“Players of this era are distracted by big money and different lifestyles but it can be managed with the right attitude, ” he said.

“During one of the Merdeka Tournament matches, the fans broke the gates to enter Stadium Merdeka to watch the team play. They were so passionate. We need fans who are with the team, in victories and defeats.”

Namat himself is an ardent fan of Liverpool and is just so grateful that he got the chance to see his team win the Premier League title after 30 years.

“Those days, we used to watch all the late night matches on television – in black and white, ” recalled Namat, who has a supportive wife in Datin Mahani Sulaiman. He also has seven children and 16 grandchildren.

“The game has evolved, others have progressed. Everything is not the same anymore. I just hope for Malaysian football to change in the right direction, ” he added.

SOURCE - The Star

# posted by Me @ 12:16 PM 0 comments

Leaping into the first decade of the 21st Century, there is now a Jakarta Casual Facebook page...still very new, come and join us!

# posted by Me @ 12:49 PM 0 comments

Once upon a time any new football club called itself United. Pattaya United. Muang Thong United. Sulut United. Felda United. Quite why clubs would go down this Anglicized naming route was beyond me. I mean, they couldn't all be aping Manchester United, could they?

More recently we have seen new clubs calling themselves City and again you wonder what the motivation could be? I mean, if you want to copy English names where are the Wanderers, Athletics or Wednesdays?

But no, ever since the oil dollars started gushing into East Manchester, and they have been lifting trophies for fun, City has become THE suffix to add to a football club. 

When Pattaya United were bought out and relocated to Samut Prakan last year, they became known as Samut Prakan City.

In Malaysia when it was decided, finally, to put MISC-MIFA out of their misery they were rebranded as PJ City. In fact it wasn't long  before the club were being linked with a takeover by the City Group, something that was soon shown up for what it was, a fantasy. 

PJ City did adopt Manchester City's sky blue colours and even added the red rose of Lancashire to their club badge before being threatened with legal action.

South of the Causeway, when it was decided to erase Home United from the history books, the new license owner went with the name Lion City Sailors. Singapore of course is often known as Lion City and indeed what is Singapore if not an Anglicized version of the Sanskrit for Lion City so in a way this example could be described as tapping into local history.

The Philippines doesn't have much of a football tradition and their most successful clubs in recent years, Ceres Negros, were owned by a bus company. With Covid 19 however the transport company withdrew from football and new owners rebranded the club United City Football Club, a moniker which defies any football logic.

It's not often I have anything good to say about the short-lived Indonesia Premier League from 2011 but one they did do in part was try to adopt names that had some meaning for their region. Hence we had Minangkabau, the team than famously though they could sign Dennis Bergkamp, Cendrawasih, Bali De Wata and Batavia Union among others.

And shouldn't that be the point? Rather than trying to hang on to the coat tails of a successful club thousands of miles away shouldn't these new-ish clubs being doing more to appeal to the people who live in their backyard?

The other side to the story is familiarity. For good or bad the top five clubs in England are massively popular in South East Asia, their branding easily identifiable. More so than than local clubs. Perhaps, in a bit to attract new supporters, clubs feel the best way to do this is to tap into that familiarity.

Maybe. Look at Buriram United and Muang Thong United. Then look at Johor Darul Ta'zim who eschewed English naming etiquette and have done all right for themselves.

I guess if I was ever in the position to spunk heaps of money on a football club I would be looking to develop a name that tapped into local traditions but I also realise I am just a football traditionalist with a romantic interpretation of someone else's past and my interpretation may not be everyone's. 

As is so often the case I have argued myself out of the original premise of a post. I started out wanting to mock, ever so gently, the recent craze of clubs adding City to their name but end up accepting there is a certain logic to 

Like yesterday's post, at the end of the day it comes down to management and what they have in way of a vision for their club. Malaysian football is the winner if PJ City can be built into a powerhouse boasting 10,000 fans every home game and giving JDT a run for their Ringgit and the same goes for Samut Prakan City, Lion City Casuals and United City. I have been crying out for new money in local football and now it's here it does seem petty to get up het up about club branding.

And anyway, anything is an improvement on football clubs named after roads, government departments or the stock market!

# posted by Me @ 2:37 PM 0 comments

 Liga Indonesia Baru have announced Liga 2 will start in October. The season initially began back in March but was postponed after a single round of matches were played. When the action returns the division will bear little resemblance to those heady days pre-pandemic.

Four groups of six teams will replace the two divisions of twelve for a start which is a pretty big change. Teams will play each other just once before the top two go through to the next round which will feature two groups of four. The top two teams from there will go on to the semi finals and I'm sure you can work out the rest.

As with Liga 1 there is no plan to have fans present at the games. Given the hand to mouth way many clubs are run I would not be surprised if some teams fall by the wayside.

As a reminder, these are the original teams:

Badak Lampung, Cilegon United, Kalteng Putra, Hizbul Watham, Martapura, Mitra Kukar, Muba BaBel United, Persekat, Perserang, Persewar, Persiba, Persijap, Persis, PSBS, PSCS, PSIM, PSKC, PSMS, PSPS, Putra Sinar Giri, Semen Padang, Sriwjaya, Sulut United, Tiga Naga

Venues and dates will no doubt be announced later.

I do enjoy Liga 2 and this season does have a tasty mix of traditional clubs like Persis, Persijap (supporters pictured below celebrating winning Liga 3), PSIM and PSMS as well as a new breed of club like Muba BaBel United, Putra Sinar Giri and Tiga Naga.

# posted by Me @ 5:14 PM 0 comments

You see the rabbit holes football can take you down? After being triggered to look at some PSMS players of yore I learn of a merger that went down in March and what looks like serious investment in a new club in South Sumatra.

It can be difficult keeping track of the mergers and changes of ownership in Indonesian football when you're living there and following it every day. But when you're thousands of miles away? No chance.

First, for me as much as anything, some background. Back in 2010 Aceh United were formed to play in the Liga Premier Indonesia. Remember that? They lasted half a season and life carried on with Persiraja the main team in Banda Aceh. 

They kind of fell off the radar after that short lived campaign before returning to Liga 3 in 2017. It's worth pointing out many clubs are little more than licenses. Owners come and go and depending on the owner a club's fortunes ebb and flow. So after 2011 Aceh United would have existed as little more than a sheet of paper tucked away in a draw somewhere.

Aceh United were promoted to Liga 2 at the end of their first season back and did well enough to reach the play offs though they finished bottom of their group.

Established in Liga 2, Aceh United then went and merged with PS Timah BaBel, previously known as PS Bangka and they were based in Pangkal Pinang. The new team was known as BaBel United (an acronym of Bangka Belitung islands) and were skippered by Agus Indra Kurniawan who previously had a lengthy spell with Persija.

BaBel United finished the 2019 season comfortably in mid table but were to be soon on the move again. Dodi Reza Alex Noerdin, who had previously been involved with Sriwijaya, set up Musi Banyuasi and merged them with BaBel United to form Musa Banyuasi United or, for the sake of brevity, Muba BaBel United.

Former international striker Bambang Nurdiansyah was brought in to coach the team and money was spent to recruit big name players like Agus Indra Kurniawan, Bobby Satria (pictured in action for Persikabo), Ichsan Kurniawan and Airlangga Sucipto. The new team started the season well, defeating newly promoted Persekat 3-0 in their opening game to go top of the table, and since the pandemic brought the campaign to a halt, they remain league leaders ahead of the season restarting in October. 

Will any fans of Aceh United or PS Timah feel any affinity with the new club? Unlikely. Football fans are used to seeing clubs come and go. And as for the town of Banyausi there used to be another team there called PS Banyuasi which has recently started training under new coach Mahyadi Panggabean. How does that work? Do PS Banyuasi fans start following Muba BaBel United or is there a new breed of supporter wearing their colours?

# posted by Me @ 1:23 PM 0 comments

Way back when, in the distant dawn of time long before there was any social media PSMS had a good team. In 2006, my first season watching Indonesian football, they reached the Copa Indonesia semi finals, defeating Liga Indonesia champions Persik along the way. I remember being quite struck by their toothpaste green and white shirts as well as the fact some of their players names where quite easy to remember; a remarkable achievement for someone struggling with the multi-syllable constructions.

Boy Jati Asmara and Markus Horison were particularly bule friendly names of course. But three other names stuck out and remained with me over the years, names that for me will always be synonymous with Medan and North Sumatra.

So it was, at some ungodly hour while I was checking on my son's online studies the name Mahyadi Panggabean released a flood of long-forgotten memories. I was flicking through a football website and saw he had been appointed coach of Liga 3 side PS Banyuasin. The left sided player was a mainstay of the PSMS side for six years up until 2008, a feat that is surely worthy of recognition in the short term world of Indonesian football, before upping sticks and heading to Persik (twice), Sriwijaya (where he won the Inter-Island Cup twice, the Super League and the Community Shield), Persela and Gresik United.

Seeing Mahyadi still actively involved in the game I went in search of his two team mates who made up, in my mind at least, the Three Batak.

Legimin Raharjo, a midfielder, left PSMS at the same time as Mahyadi, following his mate to Persik and settled a while in East Java where he also played for Arema and Gresik United. After treading water at Pelita Bandung Raya, Legimin returned to his first love in 2015 and seems to have been there ever since. I say seems to. He did go to PS TNI but then given the murky cross-ownership that happens so often they were all but PSMS anyway.

The third of the swashbuckling trio was Saktiawan Sinaga. The bustling forward made 100 appearances for PSMS before joining his two mates moving to Persik in 2008. PSMS had made the cut to the revamped Indonesia Super League by finishing runners up in 2007 but the cash was drying up, they were forced to play some home games in Bandung and in 2008 they were relegated. If the Macan Putih were hoping the Three Batak would help inspire the same success they had enjoyed with the Three Amigos (Cristian Gonzales, Danilo Fernando and Ronald Fagundez) they were to be sadly disappointed as Jacksen F Thiago's imperious Persipura dominated the league. 

Persik finished a credible fourth and Sinaga finished the campaign top scorer in the league but they were an eyewatering 25 points behind the champions and the team broke up.

Saktiawan became a footballing nomad, criss-crossing Indonesia from Semen Padang, Mitra Kukar, Perseru, PSS, Pusamania and Persiwa before ending up with Tiga Naga in Liga 2 where he remains as a player.

The years since the Three Batak left have not been kind to PSMS. They returned to the top flight in 2018 and signalled their intentions by appointing former Persib coach Djadjang Nurdjaman and bringing back Legimin in a bid to capture past glories but the team struggled all season and finished bottom. 

I can't claim to be a PSMS fan but I do wonder if, in their heart of hearts, supporters long for the day the Three Batak return to Medan and lead in some capacity and lead the club to a glory that has been absent for so long in North Sumatra!

# posted by Me @ 12:23 PM 0 comments