The Indonesian National Team Failed To Win Against The Philippines, Shin Tae-yong Revealed The Culprit
JAKARTA - The Indonesian national team coach, Shin Tae-yong, revealed the factors causing the failure of his team to get full points at the headquarters of the Philippines in the second match of Group F of the 2026 Asian Zone World Cup Qualification, Tuesday, November 21, 2023.
The South Korean coach said that the field conditions at the Rizal Memorial Stadium made it difficult for the Garuda Squad to make it difficult for them to perform optimally.
As a result, the Indonesian national team reaped a bitter result, aka only bringing home one point after the 1-1 draw.
After the match, Shin Tae-yong admitted that his students had difficulty developing difficult games to adjust the characteristics of synthetic fields.
"As everyone can see, in the first 20 minutes, you know, we didn't perform well. Actually I thought we would have trouble in the first half because of the pitch, field characteristics," said Shin Tae-yong in a press conference after the match.
Furthermore, the South Korean coach advised the Philippine Football Federation (PFF) to improve field quality at the Rizal Memorial Stadium. He hopes that improving the quality can make the match run fairly.
"One thing I want to suggest to the Philippine Football Federation (PFF) is that you should have quality fields that are FIFA standards," continued Shin Tae-yong.
"So, it shows respect for the away team even though you can spend a lot of time on this pitch doing it. Practice and adapt. I hope that next time if we compete here, hopefully the field conditions can be better," he added.
Despite difficulties at the beginning, Shin Tae-yong revealed that the Garuda squad was able to adapt to the field after the match entered the second half. Therefore, the Indonesian national team was finally able to equalize in the second half of the match.
"So, we had a hard time due to the field conditions, but the players had a good adaptation in 45 minutes so that's the reason why we were able to perform better in the second half," concluded Shin Tae-yong.