Monday, January 12, 2026
Indonesia's SAD Development
At the end of the Naughties, the PSSI had a project where they sent a squad of promising young players to play in Uruguay for a team called SAD Indonesia.
One of those players was Alfin Tuasalamony, a Malukan born full-back.
After a couple of years in South America, Alfin headed to CS Vise in Belgium, a club which was at the time owned by an Indonesian. He wasn't alone - Syamsir Alam and Yericho Christiantoko followed the same path.
Sadly, the trio's careers continued to follow each other - into relative oblivion.
At least he has played a few games. Christiantoko has, I think it's fair to say, rarely appeared for any of his 13 Indonesian teams.
I won't post Syamsir's wiki appearance record to spare his blushes!
Now, obviously, I am basing much of this on their wiki pages, and that resource is not always the most accurate, especially for lesser-known players. Who knows what else has been going on in their lives that may have impacted their careers.
Later years though saw more players go there and as can be seen by this list more than a few have gone on to have good careers for club and country.
Both SAD and Garuda Select were born out of a desire to develop young Indonesian talent and certainly recent years have seen an explosion of exciting young players like Marselino, Witan Sulaeman, Asnawi Mangkualam and Egi Maulana - but how many of them were developed abroad?
Indonesia has no problems finding talented young players. The problem lies in their development as clubs and coaches prioritise age and experience. As the recent embrace of the Indonesian diaspora has shown, there is no shortcut to success.
Players develop their skills on the muddy pitches of kampungs across the islands but once they reach an age where they need game time, they see aging journeymen on the teamsheet. Being shunted from club to club in their formative years does nothing but stunt their development. It's almost as if youth development isn't a project but a labour of love!
Hopefully, the likes of Asnawi and Marselino can learn from the experiences of Alfin and Co and fully embrace their time overseas so that when they do return to Indonesia, clubs look to them and not some 35-year-old winding down.
