c



     

 
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 ± The atmosphere was simply awesome as over 80,000
excited fans packed the majestic Gelora Bung Karno today for the first leg semifinal
showdown between Indonesia and the Philippines. And after 90 minutes, the fans went home
thoroughly thrilled, and probably a little hoarse, by an intense battle that saw Indonesia claim
a slender 1-0 win tonight.

All it took was one mistake from Filipino keeper Neil Etheridge and striker Christian
Gonzalez took full advantage to sneak in the winner in the 32nd minute. Indonesia thus
became the first team to inflict a defeat on the Philippines in this tournament. But more
importantly, it¶s a valuable lead going into the second leg here this Sunday.

Playing ³home´ was obviously no advantage for the Filipinos who found out for the first time
what it was like to face a stadium full of passionate Indonesian fans. Still, the Philippines
showed immense composure to contain their opponents and limit them to a one-goal win.
Other teams including another semifinalist, Malaysia, were humbled at the Gelora Bung
Karno during the group stage.

Indonesian coach Alfred Riedl admitted that he was surprised with the performance of their
opponents tonight. ³I¶ve seen them play but I was a bit surprised today ... they were stronger
than I expected. Today we saw why they are in the semifinals.´

But Riedl also said that he felt Indonesia was the rightful winner today. ³It was a very
important win but it¶s not over yet. It¶s going to be difficult on Sunday. It¶s very difficult to
win as they are tall, have a good defence and it¶s hard to win challenges against them. But
today, we deserved to win.´

Indonesia, fired up by the tremendous support, created several chances early in the game.
Irfan Bachdim made a quick dash down the right then set up Oktavianus Maniani. But the
speedy flanker¶s cross sailed across the face of the goal with no takers. Christian¶s close
range shot in the 11th minute was saved by Neil. In the 20th minute, the Uruguayan, who
now has Indonesian citizenship, created a great opportunity for his team to surge ahead but
Oktavianus blew his shot way above the crossbar.

Then came the fumble in the 32nd minute when Neil failed to field the ball and Christian
made good his header.

Indonesia had but a few chances after the break, so did the Philippines. But they had one
really close call in the 76th minute when Philip Younghusband¶s goal-bound overhead kick
was cleared off the line by Zulkifli Syukur.

Philippines coach Simon McMenemy, who appears to be losing his voice, was pleased with
the performance his players. ³It was an incredible experience playing in front of 80,000 fans.
I was really proud of them, they stuck to the gameplan,´ he said. ³But we made one mistake
and they scored. He¶s only 20 and is now in tears in the room feeling like he let us down. But
he saved us many times, the thing is people tend to remember the mistakes.´

McMenemy explained that the slip-up happened when the goalkeeper and defenders could
not hear other. ³The sound was extremely loud, I¶ve screamed myself hoarse just trying to
communicate with the players.´

While the team was disappointed that they could not play their ³home´ match at home in the
Philippines, the team has come away with invaluable experience facing the Indonesians here.
³Our players will rarely ever get the chance to play in front of so many fans. Irrespective of
the result, it was a priceless experience and the players will come away better. It was simply
phenomenal out there.´
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. Indonesia's population pyramid is still dominated by children and youths;
hence if the country really wants to make big leap in the future, it really needs to pay more
attention towards its human capital development ±especially ensuring decent education to its
younger generation.

My lecturer on population economics class, a brainy and bright young economist named Elda
Pardede, said that the easiest way to measure the quality of human capital in one country was
to see its sport development. In the case of Indonesia, she is simply not mistaken.

Although the racist Adolf Hitler might not be happy, but overseeing Germany¶s demographic
trend, there isn¶t anything wrong when the Germany national football team had to naturalize
and depend on Poland-born players such as Lukas Podolski and Miroslav Kloseto reach the
semi-final round in the last World Cup.

But clearly something is not right with Indonesia¶s human capital development when
Indonesia Soccer Association (PSSI) decided to convert the 34-year old, Uruguay-born,
Cristian Gonzales into Indonesian to give extra cutting edge to the national team.

Unlike Indonesia, such case could be allowed to happen in Germany since in Europe young
and working-age population number is on serious decline, with most of the European
countries facing serious threat of their ageing population, and employers there are struggling
to find young and reliable workforce nowadays.

In Germany, the 2009 data from World Bank shows that population number decreases by
0.3% compared to the previous year, whilst the federal statistics office of the country
forecasts that by 2060 Germany will see its population number to decline to 65-70 million
from current population of 81 million.

But while Germany is now recognized as the country that has one of the lowest birth-rates in
the world and may find difficulties in finding young people to fill its workforce in the future;
the future is supposed to be bright for Indonesia, as its population structure is dominated with
youths. More than a half of Indonesia¶s 230 million population number is still under 30 years
of age ±a fact that bolsters the country¶s productivity and thus plays important role behind its
rapid economic growth.
True, the 34-year-old Cristian Gonzales still has the goal-scoring prowess that our national
football team desperately needs. But considering the overwhelming number of Indonesia¶s
youths in our 230 million people, is the human development of Indonesian really that bad,
thus there is no other Indonesian-born striker younger than Gonzales who is up for the task
just to score goals?

Indonesia¶s underachievement in sports ±like our recent disappointment in Asian Games at

Guangzhou where we only managed to get 4 gold medals while our close neighbors Thailand
and Malaysia brought home 11 and 9 gold medals, respectively± is just one tangible evidence
out of many government¶s failures to promote Indonesia¶s human capital development.

For another example; does anybody know where the state budget for education goes?
Because in my campus, there was brouhaha several months ago among students and the
University of Indonesia (UI) rector regarding his decision to raise the tuition and entrance fee
to the university.

The price very much depends on the major, but prospective undergraduate students in UI
have to pay at the range of 10-25 million rupiah for the entrance fee, with yearly tuition fee of
10-15 million rupiah ±that¶s 10 million rupiah (US$ 1,100) a year if your son dreams to
become a future economist like myself, and 15 million rupiah (US$ 1,600) a year if he wants
to become a doctor and goes to medical school.

³Tuition fee in UI is very expensive, and a son of r
    (porridge seller) like me
could never be able to study there,´ said one prospective student of UI concerning the matter
in an internet forum.

In case of future human development issues of Indonesia, the words above highlight the
disappointment of our younger generations who represent the largest share in Indonesia¶s
population pyramid.

In fact, those younger generations mostly come from working-class family background, and
they are pinning their hopes on state universities to get higher education with relatively cheap
price ±or even free±, so they can get a better life in the future and liberate themselves from
the devil circle of poverty.

Several days ago, 


r rpublished a pride-oozing headline on its front page titling
³RI makes big strides in human development,´ (Dec 11). Well, really?

Speaking from my own experience in my university, as well as my observation on Indonesia

sports achievement, the data presented on that news seems to be somewhat different with
what happens in reality.

But the good news is: Unlike Germany, our age structure is far from ageing, our population
pyramid is still dominated by youths, and clearly we have no shortage of young workforce. If
Indonesian policymakers and lawmakers pay more heed to education and Indonesia¶s human
capital development, and redirect policies to enhance the quality of Indonesian workforce,
Europe¶s ageing and declining population could actually become our advantage in the future.

Predictably, what happens nowadays is almost the opposite, since policymakers and
lawmakers don¶t like to do something if they could not get the credit for it, while policies on
population and human capital development, unfortunately, tend show their effects in the very,
very long run.

We have already had our failure in football¶s youth development, and in the future we
certainly don¶t want things to become worse so we will have to naturalize another Uruguayan
to become our next Finance Minister.
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