'Soccer players need to be more disciplined'

In five short months, Indonesia coach Peter Withe steered his team to a Tiger Cup final berth. The team finished second best on Sunday in Singapore, Withe tells The Jakarta Post's Moch. N. Kurniawan that all is not lost for the future.

Although our team lost 1-3 at home and 1-2 away in Singapore, we have shown to people that Indonesia can play exciting soccer.

Yes, in the final, Singapore was the better side than us, but in the overall tournament, our performance was very good.

We opened a lot of people's eyes by playing attractive and exciting soccer, scoring many goals and with the emergence of new talent, such as 18-year-old Boas Salossa, Saktiawan Sinaga and Mahyadi Panggabean.

From the way we played, people may not realize that we had only three days of preparation before the qualifying matches in Vietnam, and the players were exhausted after the almost 12-month-long league at home.

Despite our good performance, the players must learn about discipline as many of them sustained injuries, or were issued yellow or red cards that destroyed the team at crucial times.

We lost five players in the second leg of the final, including two defenders for poor conduct.

If the players are able to control their emotions, thereby managing their discipline and not making unnecessary mistakes, then they will reach their best playing level.

The lack of discipline among players might also be the result of poor refereeing at home, because local referees do not come up to international standards.

We have often witnessed how harsh tackles in the Indonesia League do not get a yellow card, even though they would elsewhere in Asia.

If referees follow a different set of rules in domestic matches compared to their peers in Asia, it presents a problem for the national team when playing in international tournaments.

However, I believe the obstacles can be overcome through effort, and we will have a bright future if we can change.

I will start searching for new talent across the country in the next 12 months to build the strongest national team. There are about 5,000 players with potential in Indonesia -- we just have to find them.

I will be watching matches, for example, in the Indonesia League that will start in March, and scouting in Papua, Medan, Sulawesi and other areas for new talent. This will also mean communicating with coaches about their talented players.

Once I find those with prospects, I will give them a coaching clinic, assess them in their clubs or find clubs for those who don't have them.

I will also monitor their development at the club level to ensure that they get proper coaching.

Specifically for this year, we will have several international competitions, like the U-17 national team playing in competition in Thailand and U-23 team playing in Brunei.

All of these will help me form the best U-23 national team for the 2005 Southeast Asia (SEA) Games and the senior team to challenge the domination of Thailand in the region.

For the senior team, there will not be a drastic change from the present formation because when I took over as coach, we already had a 50 percent shift of players.

However, if I have to change 20 percent of them, I will, but it will all depend on their current form.

Several good players, like Bambang Pamungkas, who now plays in Selangor, Malaysia, or defender Warsidi, may return to the main team, but it will depend on their performance.