Singkong dan Keju — Singapore v Indonesia
In the 1986 hit Indonesian pop song of old, the singer details differences in class between himself and his love interest. He refers to himself as the humble Singkong(Cassava) snack while she’s the fancy and expensive cheese treat. It’s lyrics from this song that I’ll be using as a reference for as we enjoy my After Action Report on the recent AFF Suzuki Cup.
Singapore has been struck by football fever recently, reminiscent of the fabled Fandi Ahmad days. Valiant 8-man Singapore, led by Irfan Fandi and Ikhsan Fandi (progenies of the aforementioned legend himself), bowed out of the tournament in a thrilling semi-final with bitter rivals Indonesia.
Social media blew up in both good and bad ways. Indonesian trolls scrambled to Faris Ramli’s personal Instagram and mocked him for missing a penalty. Singapore fans uncharacteristically rallied around the national team and applauded their fighting spirit in the final game. My own sister lingered long on Irfan’s personal Instagram, emphatically thirst-trapped.
As a player of both Football Manager 2021 and the beautiful game in my younger days, I got curious after hearing fact nuggets from the commentators about the players. One especially interesting note of trivia was how Ezra Walian of Indonesia was previously a student of the famed Ajax Amsterdam academy.
Your Perfume is from Paris, your shoes are from Italy
Parfummu dari Paris, Sepatumu dari Italy
This then took me down a rabbit hole that led me to transfermarkt.de, an extensive database on almost every professional footballer on the planet.
As I dove deeper, it made more and more sense why we struggled against the dogged tenacity of the Indonesians. It also made Singapore’s feat even more impressive.
Out of all the players in the entire tournament, Singapore’s highest valued player came in at 42nd while Indonesia’s came in at 9th.
If the most valued player in Singapore was in the Indonesian team, he would have come in at 11th in highest market value.
This puts a lot into perspective as Singapore struggled to keep its form and momentum against the constant pressing and seemingly limitless stamina of the Indonesian players.
I like Jaipong, You Like Disco
Aku suka Jaipong, Kau suka disco o’ o’
It also raises the question: what about the rest of the region, especially Thailand (the big bully in this and previous tournaments)?
transfermarkt.de had it covered as it helpfully curated lists of players and data for me to scour through:
1.58m tall maestro Chanatip Songkrasin, small of stature but massive in on-field presence came on top at a whopping 1.6million Euros in transfer value.
3 of the entries hold dual nationalities, perhaps benefitting from advanced youth development systems in more developed European leagues. Billy Ketkeophomphone has even bumped shoulders with footballing’s best, playing 1 season in the French top flight with Angers SCO.
Aku ini hanya anak singkong
I’m just a humble cassava boy
This was a sobering comprehension of the football industry, as I usually participate with friends as armchair critics and self-appointed pundits, easily scoffing at the state of our football affairs — sadly more loyal to clubs like Manchester United and Liverpool than we are to any local associations.
As much as we fancy ourselves being the classy cheese in this clumsy reference I’m trying to make, the roles are reversed in football as we are just humble cassava boys trying to play catch up to neighboring rivals who have better culture and infrastructure.
Thanks for reading, lets continue supporting our boys.
Oh, if you’re interested in 1980s Indonesian pop, it’s a banger:
