Patrick Kluivert’s mission to guide Indonesia to the 2026 World Cup has failed. The football-mad country made a last-ditch effort to reach the tournament by naturalizing many Dutch footballers with an Indian background, including Ole Romeny (Oxford United), Joey Pelupessy (Lommel SK) and Milliano Jonathans (FC Utrecht). The Orange touch was perfected at the beginning of this year with the appointment of Kluivert as the new national coach. But the dream was shattered on Sunday night in Saudi Arabia, during a controversial and chaotic mini-tournament.
There was a lot of criticism in advance about the way in which the global football association FIFA had organized the fourth World Cup qualifying round in Asia. Six Asian countries (Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Qatar, Oman and the United Arab Emirates) had to fight it out to see who received the last two direct World Cup tickets from the continent. FIFA chose to split the countries into two groups of three, each of which would play a mini-tournament for a ticket. To the great indignation of the other participating countries, FIFA decided not to have the games played on neutral grounds, but to appoint Saudi Arabia and Qatar as hosts for these matches.
In addition, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, known to have warm ties with FIFA boss Gianni Infantino, received the most favorable schedule as host countries. They both got six days of rest between their matches, while the other participating countries only got three days of rest. Oman’s national coach, Carlos Queiroz, spoke critically about the course of events at a press conference. “Are there no stadiums in Japan or Kuwait where we could have played?” he said. “I have been working in the football world for forty years and this is not fair.”
Chaos around the stadium
Indonesia was drawn in the group with Saudi Arabia and Iraq. Last Wednesday evening, the first match in this group was scheduled between host country Saudi Arabia and Indonesia, in the King Abdullah Stadium in Jeddah. Before the match, there was chaos around the stadium. The host country stopped thousands of Indonesian supporters at the gates.
Saudi Arabia had only made four thousand of the 62,000 tickets available for Indonesian supporters for this match. Those tickets sold out quickly, but the Saudi association was unable to sell out the tickets for the supporters from their own country. Many Indonesians had therefore purchased tickets online for the home subjects. The Saudi authorities did not want that and decided to close the gate where the Indonesian supporters wanted to enter the stadium. This created a crowd in which people were oppressed. Only just before the start of the match were the gates opened, allowing everyone with a ticket to enter the stadium.
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On the field, Indonesia got off to a good start against Saudi Arabia, resulting in a penalty within ten minutes that was converted by Kevin Diks: 0-1. But then Kluivert’s team lost control and large holes appeared on the field, which the Saudi Arabia attackers eagerly took advantage of. Before half-time, the home country turned the score around: 2-1. Right back Yakob Sayuri in particular played a particularly unfortunate match for Indonesia. He caused the penalty that made it 2-1 by pulling his direct opponent’s shirt completely unnecessarily.
In the second half, Indonesia also scored 3-1, after which Kluivert made a double substitution. Ole Romeny and Thom Haye came on for Miliano Jonathans and Ragnar Oratmangoen. Indonesia then improved and scored the 3-2 from a penalty, which was again hit by Diks. Things became even more tense in injury time after Saudi Arabian player Mohamed Kanno received a red card. But in the end, Indonesia fell just short.
After the match, it emerged that the families of Indonesia’s players had also been stuck in the crowd outside the stadium for hours. They too had been stopped by the Saudi. Nino Wilkes, Kluivert’s stepson, was among them. “The situation became dangerous and terrifying. We were almost crushed by the crowd,” he wrote in a statement on Instagram.
In the run-up to the next match against Iraq, Kluivert responded to the state of affairs in Jeddah. “This was a terrible situation. I spoke to the parents of the players. There were also pregnant women and children among them. This is unacceptable,” the national coach said. NRC.
Too little energy
The loss against Saudi Arabia put enormous pressure on Indonesia’s second match, against Iraq. Losing would mean the final end of the World Cup dream. Indonesia started off excellently against Iraq on the night from Saturday to Sunday, but was unable to convert their dominance into a goal. After the break, Iraq did strike. Zidane Iqbal, center forward at FC Utrecht, scored well after a rare Iraqi outbreak. Indonesia tried to push for a final offensive, but simply lacked energy and quality.
After the final whistle, the Indonesian players crashed onto the field, exhausted. Haye burst into tears. In the press room, a visibly shaken Kluivert joined the press conference. He repeated again and again with a sob in his throat how disappointed he was in missing out on the World Cup. “This is a big disappointment. The World Cup dream is slipping through your fingers. It is not just my disappointment, but that of the whole of Indonesia. This is heavy, very heavy.”
“This hurts a lot,” said Dordrecht-born defender Calvin Verdonk with red eyes. “We gave everything, but it wasn’t enough.”
Saudi Arabia and Iraq meet on Tuesday. The winner of that match goes to the World Cup. The loser has another chance through the intercontinental play-offs.
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