Steven Danis
Football Tribe Indonesia
The busy re-scheduling of most of the 2nd leg of the 2018-2019 Piala Indonesia finished this weekend.
Defending Liga 1 champions Persija Jakarta earned a narrow 1-0 win against Bali United last Sunday. The 39 years old captain, Ismed Sofyan, scored a precious goal for Macan Kemayoran in the 58th minutes from the penalty spot. Despite the controversy behind that goal, Persija advance to the semi-final due to their away goal advantage after the tie ended 2-2 on aggregate.
Persija will meet Borneo FC, who lost 3-2 against Persib Bandung at the Si Jalak Harupat stadium on Saturday (4/5). Borneo too benefitted from away goals, with the score ending at 4-4 over the two legs.
Ghozali Siregar opened the scoring for Persib after just 4 minutes, while Javlov Guseynov leveled the scoring in the 69th minute. In the last five minutes, three goals flew to make for a highly dramatic finish in Bandung.
Meanwhile, PSM Makassar went through the semi-final after grabbing a 2-0 win against Bhayangkara FC, closing the gap after losing 4-2 in the first leg. The game changer wasn’t M. Rahmat or Rizky Pellu, who scored the side’s goals – all eyes were on Nusur Fadilah now, as the referee made a highly controversial decision which ended up swinging the tie. In the 28th minute, Bhayangkara’s defender Anderson Salles, took a free-kick from a narrow angle and managed to find squeeze his effort in, but the referee didn’t count it as a goal. On the replay video, we can see that the ball clearly in into the Rivky Mokodompit’s goal.
Apart from the three clubs who already progressed through to the semi-final, there remains one spot left for either Persebaya Surabaya or Madura United, who have been unable to play out their match due to security issues.