Indonesia, Asian football’s sleeping tiger, is ready to roar after Asian Cup success and almost making Olympics, World Cup
- Breakthroughs at Asian Cup and Olympic qualifiers, plus new ground at the World Cup, have woken up a football-mad country
- The men most responsible are the ‘Asian Mourinho’, who has sparked a new generation of players, and progressive FA president
If China and India are Asia’s sleeping giants, then where does that leave Indonesia? At the moment, fans in that football-mad country of 270 million are too busy celebrating to answer.
Passion there probably outstrips many places in the region – even more so lately after breakthroughs at the Asian Cup, the Olympics and possibly the World Cup – but this popularity has long attracted those who seek to use the game for their own ends.
It means that most football news about Indonesia filtering overseas is about match-fixing, corruption, political interference or worse – such as the 135 deaths at the Kanjuruhan Stadium in October 2022.
And less than six months after that tragedy, Fifa stripped the country of hosting duties for the U20 World Cup as some used the looming visit of Israel for political gain.
Still, in January came a first appearance in the knockout stages of the Asian Cup, and the under-23 version was even better.
