Al-Zaytun Tour, 19 April 2008

A bright and sunny day greeted the tourista’s at the beginning of our bus trip to the Al-Zaytun Pesantren near Indramayu. A couple of late arrivals – Steve fashionably last, as usual; Chris/Putri delayed by makeup artist - meant a 9.15am departure, but well within our expected ETD window, and much better than Adam Air's average delay. No-shows Epi, Nyayan, JR and Erizal were disappointing in their lack of communication skills, however with 17 players, a manager (Unyil), Chris and 6-7 supporters, we had enough on the bus to make sure we didn’t get bored talking to the same person for too long.

With Nigel tailing us from the airport we headed East and made excellent time. Rob took up a post beside the bus’ toilet as a dose of Bali Belly played out is merry game. Nigel finally caught us when Deny decided a smoke stop was appropriate and with progress to that time we thought about the lunch stop as being scheduled a little early (11.30 in Subang). This proved a big mistake ! On the advice of a runner sent from the Pesantren who said Al-Zaytun was only 1.5 hours away we elected to travel through and have lunch at the Pesantren. However this plan came to a screaming halt when we hit the ‘bad’ section of road (15kms of goat-track) that saw us lurch and heave around traveling at Duncan-ly slow speed. It was a wonder the ‘kids’ could stay asleep (Ijan and Atir dead to the world). 3 hours later we arrived with little time for lunch before we took a brief tour of the School and its huge (1,200ha) facilities. The tour showed us the wonders of the Pesantren but ate into our warm-up time and we had virtually no time to stretch and hit around on the grass before the formalities started. We suspect this was all a bit tactical as we were told we could wear our ISCI red playing shirts (despite the knowledge that Al-Zaytun had changed to a red strip in 2008), but at the pitch saw that they were in red so we had to switch to our purple tour shirts. Gamesmanship at its best.

In front of a huge crowd (estimated at 1,500 people), replete with drums, trumpets and lots of screaming (plus a commentator who had possibly never seen a game of hockey before), they lined up 16 ball-boys (more than the normal spectator crowd we get at Senayan) and with much fuss and ado we bowed to everyone and started amid so much din we could not hear the referees whistles, let alone our calls for the ball.

The opposition had an average age of 17, compared to our 30-odd (Sukirman adding significantly to the pool of years), and this showed out in their speed, keen eyes, quick hands, and ability to keep running. The commentator switched between calling them ‘Students United’ and ‘Manchester United’ in his calls. They also certainly know how to play their grass and created lots of opportunities in the first 10 minutes. Deny and Otong were run ragged at the back with Ichang failing to hold the ball up front and them running through the midfield in numbers easily. They played and missed at some shots at goal that could easily have gone in (Chris disallowed one of their short corner attempts that went in) – was this the day the luck would be with the visitors ?

Johan worked hard through the middle and with his speed cut off numerous attacks to then free up Ken who looked often to Ichang and Ijan, but they were being well covered by their defenders. Rob got a fair bit of the ball out right but one stand-out feature of the Al-Zaytun game plan was the speed with which they shut us down in 2’s and 3’s in the midfield whenever we got the ball. We had made a couple of forays forward but rarely challenged their keeper, compared to their 4 or 5 very near misses. Then with a piece of individual magic Ijan received a ball into the D and drew the ball back to tempt the keeper, and calmly lobbed him for an excellent goal.

Everyone lifted and we started to run and make position, which lead to another pass into Ijan who took the ball on the backline, dribbled around 3 defenders and then slotted the ball past the keeper from the angle. 2-0 and ISCI started to get that winning feeling. A few minutes later and Ken smacked a hard free hit into the D looking for Ijan again, but Ichang ran across the line and a big deflection from near the top of the D went in past a floundering keeper. 3-0 after 25 minutes and the ISCI bench thought we were traveling well. A number of changes were made to the ISCI formation but the Al-Zaytun team had other ideas and they continued to attack. Whereas they had missed opportunities early, they now started to take them. The first came from a short corner, then in open play they scored 2 more. 3-3 and still not half time ! A pulsating game that moved end to end with pace.

We went into the break with slightly blurred images of ISCI’s greatness, but at least it was all square (but to be fair they had missed some sitters and TJ had saved a couple of shots). A few magic words dropped in Ken’s half time team-talk stirred the crowd more than it did ISCI but as we had played quite well and now just had to win a half of hockey, heads were held relatively high.

We laboured hard in the second half but were not as sharp as the first half and chances were few and far between. Ali worked hard in defence throwing his body into the fray and Otong continued to defend well. Steve offered options out left but our right side was not working as well. Deny switched with Ichang and even Ijan had a run out wide, but whilst we got the ball up forward several times their defence was resolute, and in greater numbers. They rebounded the ball quickly out of defence down their left side to create numerous attacks.

Al-Zaytun was eventually rewarded for their domination with a goal at about the 20 minute mark. A 3-4 scoreline but ISCI did not give up. Ken had a good chance from the top of the D bouncing a shot off the keeper, and Ijan had numerous half-chances but with Al-Zaytun having numbers in the D he was quickly tackled and cutoff. We had a number of short corners and then with only a few minutes before the end Deny stopped a push out, dribbled the ball past the rushing defenders, got stick tackled but controlled the ball, and slammed it into the goal ! Instant elation, but unfortunately Chris decided that from the tackle through which Deny had carried the ball and then scored the goal, we had to go back because he had blown the whistle ! Debate raged on the bus afterwards as to the efficacy of such a call !

The game then petered out and the final whistle saw a fair 3-4 result for ISCI from a game played in good spirit with the younger guns displaying much more energy, pace and hunting in two’s and three’s to make sure our play-makers had little time to dribble or place the ball in front of forwards.

Lots of photo opportunities and interviews ensued after a pitch invasion, with the journo students choosing to talk to the more intelligent ISCI players, and others taking pictures with the pretty boys.

The queue for the showers was something not normally seen at Senayan, then we had a brief formality of speeches, exchanged gifts, and jumped on the bus

Within minutes the 4 buckets of chicken and 50 sandwich rolls were gone (TJ having already devoured the 15 packets of Chips that Chris had supplied). Not so the beer which lasted all the way home, although several people still had enough energy to drop into Bugils for a few sharpeners.

Goals : Ijan 2, Ichang 1

Best : Otong, Deny, Johan, Ijan

Team : Ken, Deny, Nigel, Otong, Leong, Rupert, TJ, Sukirman, Johan, Steve, Ichang, Rob Oates, Ali, Ijan, Atir, Denot, Lepe

Support : Unyil, Putri, Lina and kids, Robin

Thanks to Putri for making the sandwiches and filming; Chris for umpiring; Unyil for being team manager; Bagas from Al-Zaytun for chauffeuring us all the way; Deny for organizing the bus and the tour; Lina for yelling and screaming; Dzizou for just being there.

I guess we will see some photo’s in due course (Deny please get the game video from Al-Zaytun).