Indonesia v Malaysia soccer

An experience like no other is to watch an Indonesian soccer match. Many of my work colleagues warned me not to go as they can frequently turn dangerous but we threw caution to the wind and went to see Indonesia v Malaysia for the final group match of the SEA Games soccer tournament at the ageing Gelora Bung Karno Stadium.



Indonesia considers Malaysia its biggest rival in everything it does, particularly in sport. Strangely, this is largely a one-way thing as most Malaysians are unaware of this rivalry, more often measuring themselves against benchmarks set by Singapore. Nevertheless, this soccer match was set to be a dazzler and given our Sabahan links we couldn’t miss it.

Indonesians are fanatical about their national team and these emotions are amplified tenfold when up against Malaysia in soccer or badminton. Over 100,000 people squeezed into the 85,000-capacity stadium which meant that in the event of an emergency we were done for. The crowds rushed the ticket gates and officials were unable to control the stampede. We later learnt that 2 people died that night.


View of the crowd at one of the gates as they rush the turnstiles

The atmosphere was electric but I was disappointed at how disrespectful the crowd was towards the visiting team, booing during the Malaysian national anthem and chanting obscenities the whole game. Nevertheless Malaysia won the game 1-0 silencing the crowd. The two teams later met again in the final which was also won by Malaysia.

At least we can say we survived an Indonesian soccer match!




The crowd atmosphere before the game