Triumph of the will

OK -- it might not have been Italy's lucky day. And the South Koreans were playing a home match, fired on by a fanatically partisan crowd of tens of thousands. Still, in all fairness it must be said that South Korea's mesmerizing performance in the World Cup soccer match at Daejeon stadium on Tuesday has shown the world what iron discipline, perseverance, sheer determination and unbreakable willpower can achieve.

As for the rest of Asia, it is not too much of an exaggeration to say that South Korea's 2-1 victory over Italy on Tuesday is, in its psychological impact at least, comparable to Japan's spectacular naval victory over Russia in the Russo-Japanese war during the early part of the last century: It lifts Asia's sense of pride and shows that, given the right attitude, Asians too can triumph over an established superpower. All the more so, as earlier in the tournament Senegal too showed the world that it was possible to break European and Latin American dominance over the game.

At Daejeon the South Koreans came back on Tuesday from a 1-0 deficit in the 18th minute of the match to level the score in the 88th and force the game into extra time, giving South Korea the chance to score a golden goal in the 25th minute with a well- placed header from Ahn Jung-hwan.

The relevant question now is, where does all this leave Indonesia? Well, there was a time, in the 1950s and 1960s, long before it became the vogue to place sports organizations in the hands of people with big names and supposedly big money, when this country was a well-respected player in Asian soccer. Indonesia even managed to hold the Soviet Union to a 0-0 draw in the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne. What the South Koreans have taught us this week is that it is not impossible for Indonesia to regain that position -- provided, though, that the right conditions are met.