AFF Suzuki Cup Final 2nd Leg Indo 2-1 M'sia

The very sight of Malaysia lofting the AFF Suzuki Cup Trophy high into the sky to the tune of Queen's famous hit “We are the Champions” is sure to bring agonizing pain to any Indonesians with a tinge of patriotism in their hearts. That is what has just happened in admittedly quite a scintillating encounter between bitter rivals Indonesia and Malaysia in Jakarta for the 2nd leg of the AFF Suzuki Cup final. Indonesia were left to chase for no less than four goals after the 3-0 debacle from the first leg in Kuala Lumpur and to be frank, Indonesia had every chance to overturn that deficit but their true performance come a little too late, and had the goals arrived much earlier, especially if Firman Utina's early penalty had found the net, nobody could rule out a thrashing in store for the Malaysians. However, many things prevented Indonesia from achieving that such as the performance of Khairul Fahmi, the young and amazing Malaysian goalkeeper whom I really admire, the still over-reliant on the “Bule” players, the double edged effects on the fervent and massive support for Indonesia, as well as certain mental thresholds in this match.

First and foremost, special mention should be reserved for the young Malaysian goalkeeper with a somewhat Oriental face features, Khairul Fahmi Che Omar. The 21 years old goalkeeper really showed maturity and presence beyond his tender years and he proved the decisive factor for Malaysia throughout the match in preventing uncountable goalbound strikes to preserve Malaysia's aggregate advantage throughout the 90 minutes of onslaughts from Indonesia, and how he always comes out trumps against the big, tall, and bulky Christian Gonzales in aerial duels showed and substantiates the above claims. While it is true that he was not able to keep a clean sheet in this match and to prevent Malaysia's defeat in this particular game, we have to realize and admit that the first goal he conceded was really no fault of his as it was a rebound after he thwarted the earlier strike. As for the second goal, no goalkeeper in this world could keep up with the kind of onslaught especially in the last 15 minutes of the match. As mentioned, credits should go to this young goalkeeper with bright future ahead of him for preventing Indonesia, especially in the latter stages of the game to really score 5 goals and wrestle the trophy from their grasps, something which Indonesia increasingly threatened to do until the final whistle was finally blown. One sad thing was to see Fahmi being showered with laser beams. All in all, watch this space, Khairul Fahmi will be an Asian player to look out for from now onwards.

Secondly, I mentioned in the introduction that Indonesia is still over-reliant on “Bules”, actually the “s” should be removed as they did not rely on Christian Gonzales and Irfan Bachdim, but actually Indonesia, for at least 75 minutes of the match just now solely relied upon the former, as both “Bules” were tightly guarded by the Malaysian back-line, and Irfan, just like the first leg, was reduced to flailing for the scraps and tumbling down onto the pitch. Thus, for that 75 minutes period, the gameplan for Indonesia was excruciating to watch. It was just about lumping long balls towards Gonzales and nobody else. Just think about Internazionale prior to Mourinho era, in which Ibrahimovic is the Gonzales here. But, Christian Gonzales could not do it alone, not under the tight watch of the Malaysian back-line.

Admittedly, a friend asked me about a prediction of the scoreline for this match. I just replied to her that “If Bambang Pamungkas starts the match instead of Gonzales or Bachdim, Indonesia will win 5-1” and even though it was just a passing remark which was light-hearted, I believe that prediction was quite realistic had Indonesia not rely on Gonzales that way. It was not pretty to watch. But we have to admit that Indonesia was not really Bolton Wanderers, even though their final ball was always a long punt towards Gonzales, the build-up prior to that was “Barcelonesque”. The passing and one-twos were really amazing but too bad the final ball was “Boltonesque” instead.

Indonesia started believing themselves and being more adventurous only for the last 15 minutes of the match, when Bambang was already in the match, having replaced the ineffectual Irfan Bachdim, and Arif Suyono was injured and had to be stretchered off to be replaced by Tony Sucipto, which leads to M. Nasuha to be pushed to the left wing. It was a blessing in disguise and turned out to be a masterstroke. In the previous analysis on the 1st leg, I described the Malaysian playing style as passing from left, center, right to the left, center, and right side with all the permutations and combinations. Indonesia started to resemble that, albeit mainly concentrating on the left flank through Nasuha's silky skills when it was too late. They managed to score 2 goals to win this particular match with 15 minutes left, and no longer relying solely on Gonzales, and they also came close in quite a few occasions if not because of Khairul Fahmi's brilliance. Indonesians could only imagine what could have been had Indonesia started with Bambang form the start and not rely too much on Christian Gonzales...

Thirdly, this match was about breaking thresholds. At the beginning of the match, when Indonesia piled the pressure early with the Barcelonesque football, it seemed that the 3-0 advantage that Malaysia was having is still not safe enough for them to comfortably win this trophy, especially when Indonesia earned a penalty. Indonesia went on to miss that penalty, and in the second half, when Malaysia took the lead and increased the aggregate to 4-0 for them as well as silencing the Gelora Bung Karno stadium, it again seemed insurmountable for Indonesia, but then things changed again when Indonesia relied on the “Bules” less and then they scored the equalizer, and it once again seemed that Indonesia could make it. But still, the 3-0 advantage held by Mlaaysia at the beginning of the match did all the damage especially so that Indonesia shifted to the higher gears too late.

Lastly, Indonesia might have just failed to do it in front of ~80000 fervent and hardcore fans precisely because of that. While it is true that Gelora Bung Karno is a cauldron of a football cathedral which is one of the biggest stadiums in the whole world, having that number of supporters in the stadium will also have a double-edged sword effect. While it sure intimidates the opponents, it also piles a lot of pressure of the home side. Just like in chess, in which White is claimed to have a lot of advantage as they are allowed to move first and thus take the initiatives in the opening, but it also puts a lot of pressure for the White player as in a subconscious manner, White plays to win, and they feel they have to win. They try too hard to win, and they might even lose to Black. This is especially true for Indonesia as the pressure was really on them to defeat Malaysia as first, they do not want to lose in front of their fans, second, they do not want Malaysia to win the Cup on their turf, and they want to put one over Malaysia.

Thus, while Indonesians are complaining about Indonesia being “Close but no Cigar”, we have to look at this objectively and grant credits to Malaysia where it is due. Malaysia have successfully reformed and reorganized their football so much in the past few years. Just a few years back, Malaysian football  was frowned and looked down even by their own fans. They put their faith on other sports such as Silat and Badminton as their football was really hopeless. However, they started a very brave reform in which no foreign players are allowed in their domestic competition, the M-League and also to give more chances to the young players who are carefully nurtured. Giving the helm to K. Rajagobal is also a masterstroke as he was promoted from the Malaysian national team youth system and thus it was just like promoting Pep Guardiola from Barcelona B to the senior team, and true enough, he has done wonders by winning the SEA Games in 2009 and now the AFF Suzuki Cup. While their reforms, especially the barring of foreign players in their league was laughed upon, now their critics have been silenced and Malaysia could now look to a brighter football future, especially with the players barely coming out of their 20s, and surely there are more waiting on the production lines.

What caught me as a meaningful aspect of this competition is how this competition really unites Malaysia and Indonesia. As for Malaysia, it was really pleasing to see that when they scored the one goal in the match, we could see how the coaching staff, consisting of different ethnic compositions which are present in Malaysia (Chinese, Bumiputera, and Indian) celebrated in unison, and also during the trophy presentation. This proves that football really unites countries. Same goes for Indonesia, in which the hype and fun of the competition is always shared by Indonesians of different backgrounds. Everyone sings in unison, each one as a fervent supporter of the Garuda Merah Putih!

This competition has undoubtedly left a telling mark in all aspects of life in this region, and the next incarnations of this competition as well as other competitions involving the ASEAN region, which is undoubtedly a growing region in terms of football. While many have lamented on how the traditional superpowers of the region such as Vietnam, Singapore, and Thailand are sort of waning lately, but they will bounce back stronger after this while other countries traditionally not viewed as strong football nations such as Indonesia, The Philippines, and of course the AFF Suzuki Cup 2010 Champions Malaysia are also emerging, making this, in my opinion, not a power shift within ASEAN, but actually it is a power shift within the whole of Asia in which the ASEAN region is starting to stand up and be counted and sooner or later, the whole of Asia will have no choice but to sit up and take notice, and of course to take this region more seriously and with much more respect. Amen to that!