Persebaya tipped to win national soccer league

JAKARTA (JP): Fielding nine players who regularly form the backbone of the national team, Persebaya Surabaya is the red-hot favorite to win the soccer league which kicks off on Sunday, its chief rival predicts.

"There's no doubt that they have been the most consistent team in the country in the past three years. If their players can maintain their form, they stand a much greater chance of winning the championship compared to other teams," Persib Bandung deputy manager Indra Tohir said on Tuesday.

Persib and Persebaya, respectively the 1995 and 1996 champions since the merger of amateur and professional clubs into one league four years ago, will meet on Wednesday at the Senayan Stadium for a charity match that will raise the curtain on the new season.

They have not met in an official tournament since Persib beat its Surabaya arch rival 2-0 in the amateur league championship final in 1990.

Persebaya was defending the President's Cup trophy when the league was prematurely terminated in May due to security concerns and massive economic turbulence that forced several clubs to disband.

Indra, who guided Persib to the title three years ago, admitted that Persebaya was a class apart from the rest of the 28-strong field in contention for the coveted trophy, although it no longer had foreign signings to fall back on.

"Many clubs cannot afford to hire foreign players either, so basically Persebaya remains the league's grown-up," said Indra, who was named Asia's coach of the month in September 1995.

Indra, who returned to Persib after spending a year with Persikabo of Bogor last season, was cautious about his team's chance to regain the title.

"We are in search of the best lineup with the arrival of young players. It may take us time to repeat the form of our heyday, but we are going to fight it out," Indra said.

Persib is weighing a new combination of twin strikers after Perry Sandria, a free agent after his Bandung Raya club disbanded, joined it. Perry's partnership either with Sutiono or Asep Dayat in four trials recently was "quite satisfactory", according to Indra.

"They scored just a few goals, but the most important thing is they can work together," said Indra.

Persebaya captain Yusuf Ekodono played down his team's favorite tag, mainly because of the missing imports.

"We face a little problem in that both the defense and the forward line used to be filled with foreign players," national player Yusuf said.

With Brazilian goal machine Jackson Tiago leaving, Persebaya will have to count on a strong midfield team led by Yusuf who was more lethal in the box compared to the strike force of Putut Wijanarko, former Persib forward Gatot Indra and Hartono in the last two warmup matches it won.

Manager Kastowo, however, expressed guarded optimism that his team of locals could battle it out to clinch the title. "We are going back to the past when regional fanaticism was all that we needed to boost our performance," he said.

The league, plagued by sponsorship doubts, sees the 28 teams divided into three geographical divisions. Two of them, the western and central groups, are further split into two subdivisions in order to save costs.

All teams will play each other home and away, with the top two teams from each subgroup advancing to a round-robin competition vying for three berths in the final-eight round. The top two teams from the Eastern conference will qualify automatically for the quarterfinals.

The quarterfinalists will be divided into two groups, in which they will play the other teams home and away. The two best teams in each group will then play cross-over semifinals. The final is scheduled for March 21, 1999. (amd)