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Indonesia’s Young Garuda footballers eye Olympic glory as U-23 Asian Cup run ignites national pride
- Despite a 2-0 loss in the U-23 Asian Cup semi-finals, the Young Garuda have a chance of reaching the Olympics if they clinch third place
- Pundits say the cup run is a sign Indonesian football is on the rise again, after the ‘turning point’ that was the tragic stadium disaster of 2022
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Indonesia’s national under-23 football team unleashed patriotic fervour across the sports-mad nation with a string of impressive performances in the U-23 Asian Cup, raising hopes for a shot at Olympic glory despite a recent heartbreaking defeat.
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The squad, known as the Young Garuda, made history by reaching the semi-finals of the U-23 Asian Cup – the Asian Football Confederation’s qualification tournament for the Olympics – for the first time since the tournament was created in 2013.
In their debut at the tournament, the Young Garuda beat teams from Asian football behemoths Jordan, Australia, and South Korea – the home nation of Shin Tae-yong, head coach of the Indonesian men’s national football team.
The Young Garuda’s back-to-back victories sparked jubilation across Indonesia, which last featured on the global football stage at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, where the team lost 4-0 to the Soviet Union in the quarter-finals.
“So this is what it’s like to be a Brazilian, when you wake up you just have to smile because you have a good national team,” one fan wrote on social media platform X on April 26.
On Monday night, as the Young Garuda squared off against Uzbekistan in the semi-finals, football fans across Indonesia erected big screens to watch the game together, in a tradition known locally as nobar.
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Crowds also swarmed Jakarta’s main stadium, Gelora Bung Karno, where fans donned the red and white national jerseys, waved the country’s flags, and set up flares during the match.
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