UNS — The Coach of Indonesia National Football Team Under-23, Indra Sjafri, delivers an initial Football lecture for the students in the Faculty of Sport (FKOR) Universitas Sebelas Maret (UNS) Surakarta through Zoom Cloud Meeting, Wednesday (30/9/2020) evening.
Amid his packed-up schedule for coaching the Indonesia U-19 football team that currently is attending a training camp with Shin Tae-yong in Croatia, Indra Sjafri, casually known as Coach Indra, spare his time to share his knowledge and experience regarding sports coaching that he has attended. “I was once staff in a post office and was once the head of distribution in an airport. But because it was not my passion, finally I choose to focus on football,” Indra reveals.
He states that his decision, back in 2007 to choose football, which he did with sincerity and hard work. Before he took the decision, Indra, who is also the Technical Director for the Indonesian Football Association (PSSI), is familiar with the football world as he was also used to be a football player. His career as a footballer was started during 1979-1990 in Machudum Football Club and during 1980-1981 in PSP Padang. Even though so, according to Indra, the experience of a football player is not enough for them to be a coach. In order to prepare outstanding players, a football coach must have a qualified knowledge and competence.
Regarding the coaching profession, Indra is commenting on the lack of coach availability in Indonesia. He further compares the number of coaches in Japan, which reach 60,000 coaches, to the condition in Indonesia with only 3,000 coaches. This, according to him, is due to the unequal number of trainers in the 34 Districts Association (Asprov) PSSI in Indonesia. To improve this condition, Indra states that his party is currently trying to establish communication with the government, in order to provide free training to obtain the D and C grades coach’s license.
“We are working on this. Therefore, afterward, those from Yogyakarta Asprov cannot move to the Jawa Tengah (Central Java) Asprov, this applies to other regions as well. Because until now, only those with money can take coaching courses,” Indra adds.
Aside from the effort to provide free coaching courses, Indra, who had successfully brought the Indonesia U-19 National Football team to won the AFF 2013, reveals that his party also initiates collaboration with higher education institutions. This aims to support PSSI to develop Indonesian football in a better direction, by taking advantage of sports science. Indra considers sports science as an important matter, due to the higher responsibility and demands to educate players with science and experience in this modern era.
Coach Indra exemplifies Diego Maradona, a great footballer of his era, who failed to implement his experience in coaching his team. “Higher education institution is important because to be a football coach, you cannot establish a team using a conventional method where everything is done by the coach. Therefore, sport science is needed. A coach needs to understand how to learn cognitively, associatively, and automatically, thus the students can understand what we teach,” he concluded. Humas UNS
Reporter: Yefta Christopherus AS
Editor: Dwi Hastuti
