A Life Lived to Football’s Rhythm: A Profile of a Football Journalist
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A Life Lived to Football’s Rhythm
Before the first whistle ever blew in a stadium press box, the journey began in a newsroom that has mythical status in Indonesian sports culture: Tabloid BOLA. From 2017 until its final print edition in December 2018, that was home. A classroom, a proving ground, and a front-row seat to a football-obsessed nation saying goodbye to one of its most iconic publications.
When the presses stopped, the work didn’t. The byline moved—first to GOAL, then into the global orbit with freelance assignments for FIFA, and later into the heart of regional governance with the media department of the ASEAN Football Federation (AFF). The roles changed, the platforms evolved, but the subject remained stubbornly the same: football, in all its noise and nuance.
Alongside the written word came the spoken one. Since 2017, the voice has been a constant soundtrack to Indonesian football, calling games live as a play-by-play commentator. Goals, near-misses, chaos, and calm—all filtered through a microphone, often in real time, with no script to hide behind.
It’s a path shaped not only by press passes and deadlines, but by a historian’s eye. Armed with a bachelor’s degree in History from the Faculty of Cultural Sciences at Universitas Padjadjaran in Bandung, the approach to the game runs deeper than formations and scorelines. Context matters. Geography matters. Heritage matters.
Bandung, Persib, and a Goalkeeper from Thailand
Footballing identity rarely follows a straight line. In this case, it begins with a twist: a father who played for a traditional rival club, and a childhood spent in Bandung that slowly, irresistibly, pulled loyalty in a different direction.
Nine years in the city turned Persib into something more than a team. It became a spiritual home. The spark? 2006, and a Thai goalkeeper named Kosin Hathairattanakool. His arrival lit up Bandung, and with it came a revelation: this wasn’t just a club supported by locals; it was a club owned by them, emotionally and culturally. The terraces, the streets, the conversations—Persib was everywhere.
Those early years were not just about watching football, but about understanding how deeply a team can be woven into a city’s identity.
Ronaldo, Inter, and the Pain of What Might Have Been
Beyond Indonesia, the first great love wore black and blue. Inter Milan arrived through the genius and fragility of Ronaldo. Not the meme, not the myth, but the devastating No. 9 whose career in Milan felt like a series of near-misses carved out by injury.
Those seasons left a mark. The elegance, the explosiveness, and the heartbreak of seeing a generational talent repeatedly cut down shaped how the game was seen: beautiful, cruel, and never guaranteed.
Rotterdam Blood, Oranje Heart
The map stretches again—to Rotterdam. Dutch roots there made the choice simple: Feyenoord. That bond with the club naturally bled into a lifelong attachment to the Netherlands national team.
Certain days stand out. The 2010 World Cup final, with Oranje a step away from the ultimate prize. A 2013 friendly against Indonesia, watched live, merging two footballing worlds in one stadium. Oranje Indonesia watch parties that turned distant European football into something communal and immediate in Southeast Asia.
Two names sit above the rest: Arjen Robben and Giovanni van Bronckhorst. One, a winger who cut inside so often and so predictably that defenders still couldn’t stop him. The other, a captain and symbol, a bridge between eras and identities.
And tucked away in the background, a piece of software quietly changed everything. Football Manager 2005 introduced Athletic Bilbao—not just as a club, but as a philosophy. The Basque-only policy, the commitment to identity over shortcuts, sparked a long-term admiration that outlived the save file.
From Liga 1 to East Asia: A Regional Specialist
Over time, the work sharpened into clear areas of expertise. Indonesian football and Liga 1 sit at the core, backed by data, tactical insight, and long-form storytelling. Around that core, the map expands across Southeast and East Asia: Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, Japan, Korea. Leagues with their own rhythms, rivalries, and rising stars.
The skill set stretches beyond the written article. There’s digital and social media work—Instagram reels, podcasts, video content designed for fans who consume football in 30-second bursts as often as 3,000-word features. There’s player profiling, live broadcasting, interviewing, and photography, all feeding into a multi-platform approach to modern sports media.
Language becomes another tool. Basic français and español open doors in mixed zones, training grounds, and international tournaments, allowing conversations to flow where monolingual reporters might stall.
Backpack, Notebook, Microphone
Some careers grow inside studios. This one often grows on the move.
Combining a love for backpacking with professional assignments turned travel into something more purposeful. The mission: track down Indonesian players building careers abroad, from Southeast Asia to Europe, and tell their stories properly.
The routes tell their own tale: solo journeys through the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, France, and Japan. Train stations, small-town pitches, quiet training complexes, and big-city arenas, all linked by one thread—Indonesian footballers chasing their dreams far from home.
Meeting them, interviewing them, and shaping those conversations into features has become a body of work that carries a particular weight. These are not just profiles; they are chapters in a wider story of a nation slowly exporting its talent.
Those trips, those interviews, sit high on the list of cherished memories. They’re proof that football journalism can be as much about the road as the press room.
The All-Time XI Dilemma
Ask any football obsessive for an all-time XI and you’ll usually get hesitation, negotiation, and a disclaimer. This one is no different.
The non-negotiables stand out. In goal, it’s either Manuel Neuer, the sweeper-keeper who redefined his position, or Rogério Ceni, the goalkeeper who treated free kicks like personal invitations. At the back and in midfield, Javier Zanetti, Sergio Ramos, N'Golo Kanté, and Toni Kroos form a spine built on leadership, balance, and control.
Further forward, the attack carries a ruthless edge: Arjen Robben cutting in from the right, Mo Salah driving at defenders, Zlatan Ibrahimović bending the game to his will. Pulling the strings in the middle, Juan Román Riquelme or Michael Laudrup—two playmakers who saw spaces others never knew existed.
Some legends stay on the bench for one simple reason: they’re in everyone else’s team. Lothar Matthäus, Zinedine Zidane, Ronaldo—the icons who shaped eras, left out here not through doubt, but in search of something a little less predictable.
Beyond the Pitch
Football might dominate the working day, but allegiance doesn’t stop at the touchline. On the hardwood, loyalty splits between the Chicago Bulls and the Golden State Warriors, framed by the eras of Michael Jordan, Derrick Rose, and Stephen Curry. Different styles, different dynasties, same fascination with greatness.
It all adds up to a profile shaped by geography, history, and obsession. From Bandung to Rotterdam, from Liga 1 to Japan, from Tabloid BOLA to AFF, this is a career built on chasing the game—wherever it goes, and whoever carries the flag.
