Indonesia equals Thailand, says Maldives coach

April 7, 2001

Maldives Slovakian head coach, Josef Janckech, said on Friday (4/6) that Indonesia' is just as good as Thailand. He said that Maldives national team had friendly matches against two Thai clubs as part of their World Cup qualifiers preparations.

"We lost against those Thai clubs, so what chance do we have against Indonesian national team whom we heard in our country is just as good as Thai national team," said Josef.

He said that he had only started coaching Maldives for three months, and he's been signed to work in that country for a year. But to everybody's surprise, his team thrashed Cambodia 6-0 in their first qualifying match.

"At the time, the mental of Cambodian players just fell flat after we were able to score the first goal. They very much lack experience," continued Josef.

Even though he realizes Indonesia is steps above Cambodia, Josef still promises an offensive play on Sunday (4/8). He insists that none of his players is scared of Indonesia's big reputation on Southeast Asia.

"We've even heard of Kurniawan who's not only known in this region, but also throughout Asia. But still we won't play defensively. Win or lose, I promise you a beautiful football.

"All of my players were very shocked and surprised to see how big and grand your main stadium is. It's a giant of a stadium compared to our 10,000-capacity main stadium. This is an additional factor that will further push my players to give their best," said Josef.

Maldives team's manager, Abdul Hameed A. Ghafoor, said that he had heard of Kurniawan and how the striker has played in Italy and Switzerland before.

"We will watch out for him; almost everybody in Thailand mentioned his name. We are also very happy to see that the weather in Jakarta turned out to be the same as the one in Male (Maldives's capital city)," said Abdul Hameed.

Both Josef and Abdul Hameed, however, felt sorry and 'cheated' for the condition of their training field at PASI Senayan football field.

"The field is drowned with water, how we could we practice? We feel that we're being 'played' by Indonesia," said both men.

Football Association of Indonesia (PSSI) General Secretary Tri Goestoro apologized for the situation and said there was no intention on Indonesia's part to trick Maldives. The rain was falling hard just sometime before and drowning the pitch.

"We apologize for this inconvenience, and we assure you that we didn't do this on purpose. The rain was falling very hard and even Indonesian national team had a hard time practicing in the Main Stadium," said the Secretary.

from PSSI Website (4/6/01)