Tonight: Syria-Indonesia clash expected to be tight

Matheos Viktor Messakh
The Jakarta Post/Jakarta

Indonesia is banking on better preparation to avoid a repeat of its loss to Syria at the 2006 Doha Asian Games during their 2010 World Cup pre-qualifying match here on Friday.
“The players are in their best form for the match,” national team assistant coach Syamsuddin Umar said Thursday, adding that the team only had one friendly in the past two weeks.
Indonesia, ranked 125th by world soccer authority FIFA, fell to Syria 4-1 in Doha in December.
Umar said the team has learned from the video of Syria’s matches against Afghanistan and Iran.
“Syrian players tend to be very offensive, but once they miss the ball they immediately turn defensive. To overcome this, we will rely on player’s individual skills and tell them to cross the ball.
“Basically, their type of playing is 3-5-2 but they can move into 1-4-5 when they are under pressure.”
Syria’s head of delegation Tajjudin Fairuz said his team did not have enough time to prepare for the match because he was not told about it by the Asian Football Confederation until Nov. 2.
“We received the information about the match in Indonesia just a week after coming back from Tajikistan. We’ve barely been able to prepare for the match. The only preparation was the immigration process to travel here,” he said.
Syria, ranked 126th by FIFA, reached the second round of World Cup pre-qualifying after defeating Afghanistan 2-1 in Damascus and 2-0 in Tajikistan. Meanwhile, Indonesia got a free ticket after Guam’s withdrawal. (Photo from htp://www.pssi-football.com/id/nationalteam.php)

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