Hello Football Lovers
On My comeback to this community, I would like to share you about the Indonesian National Team which has just made history by achieving its first victory in the third round of the Asian zone World Cup qualifiers. Played versus Saudi Arabia that coming with the new coach Herve Renard who take over from Roberto Mancini, the squad coached by Shin Tae-yong won convincingly with a score of 2-0 at the Gelora Bung Karno Main Stadium, Jakarta, Tuesday (11/19/2024).
Marselino Ferdinan became the man of the match by scoring two winning goals for the Garuda Team in the 32nd and 57th minutes. This victory increases Indonesia's chances of appearing in the 2026 World Cup finals. This 20 years old boy is really made special performance last night. He is trully nightmare for Saudi Arabia's defense by creating the set up and finished by himself. Look at the the Cristiano style celebration picture above that became viral on social media. He imitates his idol very well.😆😆😆
The Garuda squad is currently perched in third place in Group C standings with 6 points from six matches. Indonesia is only one point behind Australia who are in second place. For information, the top two teams from each of the three groups are entitled to automatic tickets to the 2026 World Cup. While the third and fourth ranked teams will advance to the fourth round. The victory over Saudi Arabia made Indonesia a public topic of conversation, including the Southeast Asian media.
Without belittling the role of other players who also contributed greatly to this match, the tactical changes made by coach Shin Tae Yong were brilliant. The 3-4-3 pattern that has often been used, in last night's match changed to 3-5-2. Marselino as a free role player gave him the freedom to move to disrupt the opponent's defense. There were two failed opportunities from Marselino to start this match. However, Lino, his nickname, paid for it with two braces. In his interview with the media, Lino said that the first goal seemed to melt everything. The public pressure that had been on him had paid off. However, he also said that their struggle was not over, there were still several matches that had to be played in order to bring Indonesia to fly high towards the grand 2026 World Cup event which will be held in three countries, namely Canada, Mexico and the United States.