Preview Of The Last 16 Of The 2023 Asian Games: The Sharpness Of Ramadan Sananta Is Expected To Be Able To Robek Uzbekistan's Gawang

Ramadan Sananta while appearing to defend the Indonesian national team against the Philippines and winning 3-0 at the 2023 SEA Games Cambodia on Saturday 29 April 2023. (Between/M Agung Rajasa)

JAKARTA - The Indonesian U-24 national team will expect the sharpness of the front line which will be strengthened by Ramadhan Sananta, against Uzbekistan in the last 16 of the 2023 Asian Games soccer sport, Thursday (28/9).

It's not too much to say that the national team is lucky enough to qualify from the group stage. After opening up the journey with a 2-0 win over Kyrgyzstan, the national team then lost 0-1 to Taiwan and 0-1 to North Korea.

With the existing point calculation model and the voting system, the national team was then entitled to advance to the last 16 after Kyrgyzstan 4-1 over Taiwan to make Indonesia one of the best third-placed teams.

According to his statement after being defeated by North Korea, coach Indra Sjafrie actually called on players to strengthen his team when appearing in the last 16 of the Asian Games. The player who was called up by the coach was the striker of Persis Solo Ramadhan Sananta.

Ramadan is known to have been in China since last Tuesday (26/9). He is expected by coach Indra to be the solution to the bluntness of the national team's front line when facing the team with a strong defense.

The U-24 national team that was brought to the 2022 Asian Games was indeed minimally a pure striker. Of the several forwards brought by coach Indra, only Titan Agung was the central striker.

Even when they won 2-0 over Kyrgyzstan in the opening match, the two goals were scored by players who incidentally were wing players, namely Hugo Samir and Ramai Rumakiek.

However, Titan did not get the trust of coach Indra to be able to perform fully. In the match against Kyrgyzstan and Taiwan, Titan was only played for 45 minutes.

Even during the match against North Korea, the Bhayangkara FC striker was not played at all.

In the three Asian Games group stage matches, the U-24 national team practically relied more on wing players to open up space and create opportunities.

Ramadan Sananta itself is quite familiar with the U-24 team, whose members are some of the U-23 national team players.

Together with the U-23 national team, Sananta contributed five goals to bring the team to win the 2023 SEA Games gold medal in May.

Sananta then returned to defend the U-23 national team at the AFF U-23 Cup last August. He only scored two goals for the national team, but his existence was very troublesome for the opposing defense and his role was not small to bring the national team through to the final.

The record of the meeting between Indonesia vs Uzbekistan, as reported by Antara, at the senior level of the Indonesian national team had met the Uzbekistan national team twice, namely the 1997 Asian zone World Cup qualifiers. In the first match which took place on June 1, the national team drew 1-1, but at the second meeting played on June 20, Uzbekistan won 3-0.

Meanwhile, in the age group, the U-23 national team played against Uzbekistan in the 2018 PSSI Anniversary Cup. In that match, Luis Milla's U-23 national team drew 0-0.

In addition, the U-20 national team also drew 0-0 with Uzbekistan in the final match of the U-20 Asian Cup group phase in March. So that the U-24 national team still has the opportunity to force a draw until normal time is over, to finish it on penalties.