English-Indonesian midfielder Jack Brown was called up by Indonesia U-19 head coach Shin Tae-yong for the ongoing national team training camp in Jakarta – the second youngster of Indonesian descent to receive a call-up from the South Korean. Following the elimination of 11 players from the U-19 national team shortlist, Tae-yong has decided to call upon a fresh batch of players to be observed, which included the Lincoln City U-17 youngster.
Born to an Indonesian mother and an English father, Jack arrived in Jakarta on Tuesday, having taken a swab test for COVID-19 during his transit in Dubai. The test result came out negative, meaning that Jack was allowed entry to Indonesia and was exempt from the COVID-19 tests and quarantine that players were require to undertake prior to participating in the training camp.
“Jack has been practicing everyday, regardless of receiving a call-up or not. He had also undertaken his COVID-19 tests in Dubai while transiting and it came out as negative, meaning that he doesn’t have to be quarantined first,” said Jack’s mother, Indah Brown to CNN Indonesia, “Let’s all hope for the best so that he could represent Indonesia in the upcoming U-20 World Cup.”
Prior to Jack’s call-up, Tae-yong had already enlisted another player of Indonesia descent in his shortlist, Ipswich Town’s Elkan Baggott. However, Elkan was forced to pull out from the training camp due to Ipswich only allowing Elkan to train with the U-19 national team until August 8th. Despite this, Elkan is likely to join the Indonesia U-19 national team for the upcoming AFC U-19 Asian Cup in Uzbekistan, having received permission from Ipswich to participate in the competition that will take place from October 14th to 31st.
“I’m impressed with Elkan, his posture is ideal for our defense. If he could increase his abilities a little bit, he would become a major boost for Indonesian football,” said Tae-yong, commenting on what he had observed from Elkan.
Prior to Jack’s arrival, Tae-yong had crossed off 11 players from his shortlist after observing their performance throughout the training camp. A notable exclusion from the South Korean’s shortlist was Sutan Diego Zico, whose elimination from the shortlist came as quite a surprise considering that the striker was one of Indonesia’s best young attacking talent in recent years. The Persija Jakarta youngster could not hide his shock at his exclusion from the training camp.
“Quite disappointed about my elimination. I’ve only practiced with the team three times and those are just light workouts. We haven’t gotten into the main focus of the training camp as well as tactics discussions and internal games. But suddenly people are being crossed off from the shortlist. That’s just weird and a bit unfair,” said Sutan.
When asked about the decision to eliminate 11 players from his shortlist, Tae-yong had this to say, “They were eliminated not because they weren’t good enough. They were eliminated because we need to streamline our squad before we go overseas (to either South Korea/Europe) for the next phase of the training camp.”