Players make Kolev proud

JAKARTA – Indonesia coach Ivan Kolev hailed the performance of the AFC Asian Cup co-hosts, even though a 1-0 defeat at the hands of Korea Republic ended the nation’s participation in this year’s competition.

Kim Jung-woo scored the only goal of the game 11 minutes before half-time as the Koreans joined Saudi Arabia in the last eight, leaving Indonesia in third place in Group D and out of the competition.

“I’m disappointed that we cannot go through to the next round but I’m proud of the players,” he said.

“They were fighting to the end. I’m proud of the players because from the very beginning until the last game they played at their best level even though we knew our opponents would be tough.”

Indonesia came into the event as rank outsiders but caused an early upset when they defeated Bahrain 2-1 before losing in injury time to Saudi Arabia. A win over the Koreans would have saw them go through to the last eight for the first time.

However, despite their exit, Kolev believes Indonesia will benefit from their participation in the event and sees a bright future ahead.

“There are so many lessons that we have learnt, I can’t explain them all but I’m sure it will mean that we are a much better team in the future because of all the hard work we have done,” he said.

“We started training two-and-a-half months ago and it was not enough time but hopefully we can stay in good shape and have a good team in the future.”

The former Myanmar coach hailed his team’s battling qualities as they tried to pull themselves back into the game.

“The level of the Korean team and the Indonesian team is different,” he said. “Korea is slightly higher but I’m proud of the Indonesian players especially in the second half of this game and to keep the score at 1-0.

“The Indonesia team is not like England or Germany or France, who can change their strategy in every game. Coming into the game we had so many injuries so I could only maximise what I had.”

Gelora Bung Karno Stadium, Jakarta, IDN 18/7/07 17:20
	Indonesia	Korea Republic
	0 - 1 (HT: 0 - 1)
		Kim Jung-woo 33

Taken from =afcasiancup=