Steven Danis
Football Tribe Indonesia
Elected PSSI Chief, Mochamad Iriawan, is seeking for new national team coach after consecutive losses for the senior side in FIFA World Cup 2022 and Asian Cup 2023 qualifying under Scottish coach Simon McMenemy.
The Garuda now sit bottom of Group G and haven’t secured any points, losing their hopes for play in Qatar and are set to enter another qualifying campaign in order to go to China four years from now.
There are two candidates named by Iriawan in front of the media at the PSSI Congress 2019 after being elected as it’s chief for 2019 – 2023. The first name is the supporters and media darling, Luis Milla, that already coached Indonesian in Asian Games 2018 campaign. On the other side, there is South Korea ex-national team coach, Shin Tae Yong.
Milla, aged 53, became the nation’s new idol after Austrian Alfred Riedl who takes the senior side to AFF 2010 and 2016 final, with his tiki-taka style perfectly adopted into the U-23 side for Asian Games 2018. The team progressed to the big 16 round and were defeated by the UAE in a penalty shoot-out
Meanwhile Yong, aged 50, is well known after South Korea’s magnificent win against Germany in the last World Cup, but unfortunately, his contract with Taegeuk Warrior terminated after they did not go through the knock-out phase in Russia.
Milla won the UEFA European U-21 Championship back in 2011 with a famous Spain generation including David de Gea, Ander Herrera, Javi Martinez, and Juan Mata played on his side. Meanwhile, Shin Tae-Yong also had good memories with Seongnam that year as the club won the Korean FA Cup before taking the prestigious title, AFC Champions League, in what is a truly remarkable achievement for the club.
On the other hand, the PSSI’s latest executive committee already had their very first meeting on Tuesday afternoon, and are set to announce the future of Simon McMenemy immediately. Many sources have reported that the ex-Philippines national team manager will have his last game for the Garuda in Kuala Lumpur in two weeks’ time.
“For a while, Simon still sits as the senior national team’s coach because we think a panic coach changing will make the team worse. But we keep looking the perfect figure to handle Garuda, also we’re focusing the upcoming event, the SEA Games 2019 in Manila.”
But before Indonesia can be managed by a new coach in their last three qualification games in 2020, the PSSI need to pay Simon’s contract termination so both sides can mutually part before his contract is officially set to end, after the AFF Cup 2020.
So Milla, Tae-Yong or whoever that signed the contract will face the ‘eternal nightmare’ to help the nation lift AFF trophy at least for the first time. But, being the winner of the AFF Cup in 2020 is not only the main task that the new coach must achieve.
After the biennial event, Iriawan also targeted the senior side to achieve qualification to the AFC Asian Cup 2023. Additionally, he stated that the long term target would be the World Cup in 2026, which will be held in Canada, Mexico, and the United States, hoping to field the team which they will send to the U-20 World Cup in 2021 as hosts.
The new coach candidates do not have a lot of time to build a superior team for AFF Cup 2020, he or maybe she also needs to make a continuity program to build a team who will qualify into next round of the Asian Cup 2023 until the Garuda can hold a ticket to the final stage.
So, with all the targets that the federation pushed to the new coach, will Milla or Tae-Yong sign the contract with us?