RI confident of outpowering Cambodia
JAKARTA (JP): Indonesian team captain Bima Sakti expressed his confidence in beating Cambodia in the group nine match of the 2002 World Cup qualifying round at Bung Karno stadium on Sunday.
"We want to present the best birthday gift to the Soccer Association of Indonesia (PSSI): a full victory against Cambodia," he said, referring to the PSSI's 71th anniversary which fell on Thursday.
"We have not lost to Cambodia in the last three consecutive meetings. We tied 1-1 during the 1998 World Cup qualifying round in Pnom Penh but we beat them in the last two matches in the Asian Cup qualification last year and the Southeast Asian Games in 1999."
Young star Bambang Pamungkas echoed the same optimism.
"Insya Allah (God willing), we can win over Cambodia. Since 1999, I have put six balls in Cambodia's goal."
However, Bambang was still in the dark on the visitor's strength as it will field junior players.
The match organizers' chairman, Sartomo, said PSSI sold 30,000 tickets at a price that ranged between Rp 10,000 (US 90 cents) and Rp 25,000 each.
The organizers will also ask the police to deploy 600 officers to safeguard the match.
National team manager Irawadi D. Hanafi pledged to give a cash bonus to players, should the team win.
"If Indonesia wins the match, each player will pocket Rp 600,000, while a substitute will earn Rp 400,000. The bonus is the same for every match."
Cambodia arrived here Friday afternoon.
Indonesia is in group nine with Cambodia, the Maldives and China. It will play China on May 27 at home. The national team will fly to play Cambodia on April 29, the Maldives on May 6 and China on May 13.
In Beijing, AFP reported that Crystal Palace defender Fan Zhiyi, long the mainstay of Team China's defense, has been excluded from China's squad for the first round of the qualifying tournament.
China will begin its campaign in the Sunday match in Xian against the Maldives.
None of China's overseas stars were placed in the squad for the opening match either, although national team coach Bora Milutinovic put the German-based duo Yang Chen and Xie Hui on standby.
With the absence of the star players, the squad in Sunday's match will look markedly different from the team that surprised the region with spirited showings against Japan and South Korea and a fourth place finish in the Asian Cup last year.
What many expect to see on Sunday is the young and inexperienced national side that has recently lost a series of warm-up matches, including friendlies with the United States, Sweden, the Italian club Lazio and Crystal Palace.
Bora Milutinovic scoffed on Thursday at the rising pressures facing China's qualification chances for next year's World Cup finals, despite an "order to kill" from Beijing's bossy sports bureaucracy.
After a year and four months at the helm of China's national team, the man known around the world as Bora, begins his quest to qualify China for the World Cup finals on Sunday. (ivy)