Crisis Won’t Deter Spaso’s Love of Football
With the government and the Indonesian Football Association, known as the PSSI, showing no signs of compromise in their unseemly dispute over ownership of the game, there can be no winners.
Clubs lose out because postponed games mean a cash crunch at a time when they struggle to pay their way; fans miss out on the excitement of match days; and players miss out doing what they love best, playing football.
Montenegrin striker Ilija Spasojevic has been in Indonesia five years, a period bookended by crisis.
He signed for Bali DeVata of the ill-fated rebel Indonesian Premier League after impressing coach Petar Segrt while they were in Georgia. When the Croatian arrived in Indonesia, one of the first players he made a move for was Spasojevic.
The talented striker knew next to nothing about Indonesian football but that was soon to end. He was playing for a club in a league that was not recognized by the PSSI or FIFA and there was talk at the time of players involved being banned for life.
The league folded after five months, only to re-emerge as the official league in 2012, when Spasojevic found himself playing for PSM Makassar. With later spells at Mitra Kukar and Putra Samarinda, I wondered whether he felt he had missed out on the big time by playing for clubs in the eastern islands.
“I have to disagree with you on this one,” he replied vehemently. “PSM Makassar is one of the biggest and oldest clubs in Indonesia, former champion and four-time league runner-up.
“Mitra Kukar is with a new management and always fighting for the top of the table. When I played there in 2013 Mitra Kukar ended up third in the Indonesian Super League, above the big clubs like Persib, Sriwijaya, Persija et cetera. Pusam [Persisam] is also a club with a big tradition in Indonesia.”
A pause for reflection. “No,” he insists. “It was my pleasure playing for all these clubs.”
At the end of 2014 he got a call from Dejan Antonic, coach of Pelita Bandung Raya (now known as Persipasi Bekasi Raya) and Spasojevic was happy to make the move.
“[He] knows me from before as we played against each other many times when I was at PSM and he was coaching Arema in the Premier League. He called me to join him in PBR because the club had big plans for 2015 after reaching the play-offs last season.”
Antonic is considered one of the best coaches in Indonesia at the moment and is a familiar name following a playing career that included Persebaya Surabaya, Persita Tangerang and Persema Malang.
A 14-year stint in Hong Kong then followed, where he hung up his boots and became a successful coach before returning to Indonesia in 2012 with Pro Duta.
Like many others in the game Spasojevic rates Antonic highly and is not surprised to see the Croatian strongly linked to the vacant national team position.
“I think he is a great coach, and he already proved it with his achievements last year. What I like the most about him is that he doesn’t allow ‘stars’ in the team, but all 11 players are equally important and everyone has to work very hard, otherwise he is out. That’s his key to success.”
Unfortunately his stint with PBR was to be cut short as the club struggled for money. Three clubs made approaches but Spasojevic was in no hurry to leave a club he had yet to kick a ball for. He preferred to wait for the situation to be sorted out.
With no end to the crisis in sight the 27-year-old accepted an offer from Indonesia Super League champion Persib Bandung just before the start of the new season, but the conflict between the government and the PSSI saw just two rounds played before the ISL ground to a halt.
Persib has been luckier than most clubs; it has had an AFC Cup campaign to keep its players, occupied but Spasojevic signed after the transfer deadline, meaning he must sit out those games.
He refuses to sound too downhearted over the hand fate has dealt him.
“It is a very difficult time for me. In the AFC Cup, I cannot play, and the ISL is postponed again, so lately I am just trying to work hard on training and waiting for some good news,” he said.
“It’s not easy, that’s for sure, to stay motivated. But I don’t have any other choice, I need to find any way to make myself motivated, because sooner or later the games will begin again and I need to be ready when it happens.”
Despite a roller-coaster spell in Indonesia that saw him arrive in a time of conflict and now finds himself on the edge of another one, Spasojevic says he has not felt the urge to try his luck elsewhere.
Indeed, he is even considering taking on Indonesian citizenship, so enamored of the country has he become.
“I really feel like home here in Indonesia and this country has given me much. During the last four years I had many offers from other countries, but even with all the problems here, I never left,” he said.
“I want to give my contribution for better football in Indonesia. My wife is Bugis Indonesian, my son has Indonesian citizenship, so I also feel partly Indonesian.”
While the powers that be continue to bicker, football has pretty well come to a standstill; but Spasojevic continues to hope and believe things will improve — and when they do, then he wants to play his part for Indonesian football.
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