Kempes vows to upgrade Indonesian football
Kempes vows to upgrade Indonesian football
JAKARTA (JP): Mario Alberto Kempes, whose skills helped Argentina lift the 1978 World Cup, yesterday pledged an all-out effort to lift Indonesian soccer to a new high.
"As both player and coach, I will do my best to improve Indonesian soccer," said the 42-year-old striker upon his arrival at the Soekarno-Hatta airport yesterday evening.
The 1978 World Cup top scorer was noisily welcomed by around 40 red-shirted fans of Pelita Jaya, Jakarta's top soccer club with which he will sign a 10-month, US$50,000 contract.
Pelita crashed out in the last-eight round of Indonesian league last season, even though it was bolstered by Cameroon soccer legend Roger Milla, who is now on loan to East Kalimantan side Putra Samarinda.
Kempes is expected to take Pelita Jaya to the Indonesian league championship title this season. The league, which kicked off in November last year, is taking a one-month rest due to the fasting month.
Kempes, who does not speak English, was helped yesterday by an impromptu interpreter Roberto Rejes, an advisor with the Italian soccer giant Sampdoria and a close business associate of Nirwan Bakrie, owner of Pelita.
"I know that soccer is very popular in Indonesia and that Indonesia is a country with a big soccer potential. I will do what I can for the future of soccer in this country," said the man voted South American player of the year in 1978.
Kempes, however, said that he had just arrived and was not yet aware of complicated problems faced by Indonesian soccer.
He believes that as a playing coach he will be able to identify properly his new team's weaknesses and correct them.
Kempes, the man behind Valencia's success in the Cup Winners' Cup in 1980, said he would still be playing although certainly not as brilliantly as twenty years ago. He also has no idea when he will stop playing.
The free kick specialist said he started his career in 1992 as coach for the Spanish soccer federation for two years. Then, from 1994 to 1995, he played for Chile's second division side Fernandez Vial. Kempes said he also had a coaching certificate from Argentina's soccer federation.
Pelita Jaya's manager Andrie Amin said it was his club's policy to bring former soccer stars such as Roger Milla and Kempes to the country.
"At least one of three foreign players we hire must be a star of the past," Amin said. "It is necessary to enhance the soccer image of our country. Moreover, they are expected to inspire our players to play better," Amin added. (arf)