February 29, 2012; Rifa, Bahrain; Our Galipolli
Football is a something in Indonesia. Maybe not as meaningful for our life as it to Latin Americans, but it is something. For most of us, Indonesian, our life would feel slightly better when our national team perform well; and it would feel worse when we were beaten by weaker team or trumped heavily by stronger opponent.
People say that everyone has their ups and lows. Well, that night was our definite low. Before that night, our lowest point was when Denmark beat us 9-0 on a friendly match in Copenhagen in 1974. But that night made a new note in history because a/n (allegedly) referee bribing Bahrain trounced us by 10 goals to none.
Let me explain why we could perform so bad that night. Due to (again allegedly) FIFA-ban on ISL players, the national football federation PSSI could only call the players that played in the IPL. IPL is a newly formed, yet "official" first level league of our nation since the latter half of 2011. The established national team players mostly played for more established ISL teams, hence the current national team consist of un-experienced players with more than half winning their debut cap on that night. The player with most caps is Irfan Bachdim with 12 caps up that night.
This worsened by the officiating of Lebanese referee, that shows red card to our makeshift goalkeeper on the 3rd minute. Play with ten players against an on-a-mission referee, it was heartbreaking to see the Bahraini scored goals and many more goals easily.
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