John Herdman Interview: Indonesia Has Good Players for Regeneration

Jakarta (ANTARA) - Indonesia’s national team coach, John Herdman, believes that Indonesia currently has a number of quality players who have the potential to be pillars in the regeneration of the Indonesian national team.

Herdman believes that Indonesia has a wealth of talented players after seeing and monitoring a number of players directly through matches in domestic leagues such as the Super League and foreign leagues.

This was conveyed by the former coach of the Canadian national team in a special interview session with the ANTARA Sports editorial team in Jakarta, last Tuesday (12/5).

Here is the complete transcript of the interview with John Herdman regarding the current regeneration:

ANTARA: So I see you have watched several Super League matches, right? I think the Indonesian domestic league currently has many talented young players such as Kakang, Alfharezzi Buffon, and Doni Tri Pamungkas. My question is, will you focus on promoting these young players to the national team?

John Herdman: I have been here for four months. I now have a lot of time to see the young players directly, and the reality is that I have seen some of them.

I am not monitoring players aged 28 to 36 even though they offer something interesting. I am very interested in these young talents.

As you said earlier, Doni Tri is one of the examples that caught my attention in the last training camp.

We feel that it is very important for young players to gain a lot of experience because they still have a great opportunity to go abroad (play abroad).

And for us, I think as (coach) of Indonesia we need local talent to break through the barriers to be able to play in the best leagues in the world. We are getting closer to talented players like Marselino (Ferdinan), but we still need a lot more talent to be able to break through those barriers.

ANTARA: I would like to ask for your opinion on the potential for regeneration in the current Indonesian national team?

John Herdman: I think this is a very interesting generation of teams. I think a number of key players in the squad also understand what steps need to be taken to be able to break through (to the 2030 World Cup), because that is all the goal. So 1.5 years of qualification is a very important period.

However, what you need to understand is how all the (regeneration) processes will run so dynamically at that time.