The Indonesian film Agak Laen: Menyala Pantiku! is currently dominating cinemas nationwide. By its 17th day of release, the film had drawn approximately seven million viewers across Indonesia, cementing its status as the country’s fourth highest-grossing film of all time and the second highest-grossing release of 2025. Few could have predicted, however, that the success of Agak Laen: Menyala Pantiku!—and by extension the Agak Laen podcast on which it is based—could be traced back to the collapse of a football club in 2017.
Founded in 1986 as a participant in Persib Bandung’s internal competitions, Pro Duta FC spent much of its early existence in relative obscurity, recording few notable achievements. Things began to change in 2009 when the club was taken over by North Sumatran businessman Sihar Sitorus. Under his ownership, Pro Duta was relocated from Bandung to Sleman before eventually settling in North Sumatra, switching between Medan and Deli Serdang. With financial backing from mining companies associated with Sihar and his family, Pro Duta built a reputation as a producer of promising young talent, frequently holding overseas training camps and facing high-profile opponents such as Buriram United, Hamburg SV, and the youth teams of AS Roma and Ajax.
Pro Duta enjoyed its golden era in the early 2010s, but by the 2017 Liga 2 season the club was already a shadow of its former self. The Pegasus fielded a squad largely made up of relative unknowns, supplemented by a few experienced names from Indonesia’s second tier and lower leagues, including Fiwi Dwipan and Aidun Sastra Utami. Adding to the sense of instability, Pro Duta played their home matches at Cendrawasih Stadium in West Jakarta rather than at their usual base, Baharuddin Siregar Stadium in Deli Serdang.
Yet the central figure in this story was Pro Duta’s goalkeeper that season: Oki Rengga Winata.
Born on June 26, 1988, Oki was a journeyman goalkeeper by that point in his career. He had previously played for several clubs in his native North Sumatra—most notably PSMS Medan and PSDS Deli Serdang—as well as Kalteng Putra in Central Kalimantan, before returning to Pro Duta for his second stint in 2017. His most notable—or rather most infamous—moment that season came in a 4–0 derby defeat to PSMS Medan, where he produced a disastrous performance as his former club ran riot. In a later interview, Oki admitted that he had been drinking before the match and had taken to the pitch intoxicated.
Everything changed for both Pro Duta and Oki on July 26, 2017, when Sihar announced that he was withdrawing Pro Duta from Liga 2 after just eight matches. He cited his deep disillusionment with the state of Indonesian football, arguing that despite promises of reform following FIFA’s 2015 ban, meaningful progress had failed to materialize. Believing that Pro Duta deserved a better environment in which to grow and compete, Sihar decided to pull the club out of the league, with hopes of returning once conditions improved.
That moment never came. Pro Duta would remain inactive for years and, by 2025, were effectively dissolved—clear evidence that the ideal Indonesian league envisioned by Sihar remains far from reality. Sihar himself did not step away from football entirely, resurfacing a year later as the owner of Belgian club FCV Dender, once again investing heavily in a team far from the turbulence of the Indonesian game.
For Oki, however, the fallout was immediate. In the space of just a few months, he went from being a Liga 2 footballer to effectively unemployed. With Pro Duta pulling out mid-season and club registration already closed until the next transfer window, Oki was left with nothing to do in the meantime.
Or so it seemed.
Away from football, Oki had long harbored another passion: stand-up comedy. Between matches and training sessions, he spent his spare time performing on stage. What began as a hobby gradually turned into something more serious, as he developed his own material and established himself within Medan’s stand-up comedy scene while still actively playing football. Even during his brief spell at Kalteng Putra, Oki continued performing, entertaining audiences in Palangkaraya and joining the city’s stand-up community.
When Pro Duta went under, Oki saw an opportunity to continue his livelihood through his other passion—and he took it.
Oki first appeared on the national comedy stage in 2017, when he competed in the third season of Stand Up Comedy Academy, advancing to the round of 20. There, he met fellow comedian Boris Bokir, with whom he would go on to form a close friendship. The following year marked a turning point. Having retired from professional football for good, Oki entered the eighth season of Kompas TV’s Stand Up Comedy Indonesia, finishing as runner-up to Popon Kerok. Despite missing out on the grand prize, his performances throughout the competition solidified his reputation as a capable stand-up comedian.
Oki’s stock steadily rose in the years that followed. From 2019 onwards, he appeared in several comedy films and television series, gradually becoming a familiar face in Indonesia’s entertainment industry. In 2021, Oki reunited with Boris Bokir alongside Bene Dion and Indra Jegel to form the Agak Laen podcast. The four frequently discussed life as North Sumatran men in a humorous and self-deprecating manner, and the podcast quickly became a massive success.
That success eventually translated to the big screen. Agak Laen was released in 2023, followed by Agak Laen: Menyala Pantiku! in 2025, both of which proved to be huge commercial hits. Although the podcast itself came to an end in 2024, the success of Oki and the other members of Agak Laen was undeniable, as they became some of the most prominent faces in Indonesian comedy.
Oki was far from the only former Indonesian footballer to successfully transition into the entertainment industry. Julian “Uan” Kaisar, the frontman of pop band Juicy Luicy, was once a Persib youth player, while Rifky Alhabsyi played for Persiba Balikpapan, Sriwijaya FC, and PSIM Yogyakarta before becoming a soap opera actor. Other notable examples include Syamsir Alam and Nyoman Paul.
Syamsir Alam enjoyed a professional career with clubs such as DC United, Sriwijaya FC, and Persiba Balikpapan before abruptly retiring in 2016 to pursue opportunities in entertainment. He went on to host the 2019 edition of My Trip My Adventure and appeared in several soap operas, before briefly returning to football in 2021 with RANS Cilegon, owned by fellow entertainer Raffi Ahmad.
Nyoman Paul’s story was even more remarkable. Born to a Balinese mother and a Swedish father, Nyoman spent his formative years in Sweden, rising through the Skövde AIK academy before breaking into the first team in 2020. His performances attracted the attention of PSSI, and he was even earmarked for Indonesia’s U-20 squad ahead of the 2021 FIFA U-20 World Cup. A loan move to Barito Putera followed to help him adapt to Indonesian football.
However, fate intervened. The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted his progress at both Skövde and Barito Putera, before a brief spell at Kalteng Putra followed in 2021. A move to PSDS in 2022 also failed to materialize in the aftermath of the Kanjuruhan Tragedy. With his football career once again in limbo, Nyoman turned elsewhere, auditioning for the twelfth season of Indonesian Idol. He reached the final four, and although he did not win the competition, his profile as a musician soared. By 2025, Nyoman had committed to music full-time, releasing his debut album.
The path taken by Oki, Syamsir, Nyoman, and others in Indonesia is not without precedent. Beyond the country, figures such as Eric Cantona, Ahn Jung-hwan, and Vinnie Jones have all proven that footballers can successfully reinvent themselves in the entertainment industry.
Football careers are often short and unforgiving, shaped as much by circumstance as by ability. For Oki Rengga Winata, the collapse of Pro Duta FC could have marked the end of the road. Instead, it became the unlikely starting point of an entirely different journey—one that eventually led from the goalmouth to the cinema screen, and from professional obscurity to cultural prominence. In a sport where opportunities can disappear overnight, Oki’s story serves as a reminder that sometimes, losing everything is what allows something new to begin.