Indonesia coach John Herdman wants to deliver for football-mad country

JAKARTA – John Herdman’s first day of work as Indonesia’s new national coach did not turn out the way he had imagined.

Within 24 hours of arriving in Jakarta, the Englishman was hospitalised with a minor illness. But the two-day stay also gave him an unexpected introduction to the football fervour in South-east Asia’s most populous country.

That unbridled passion has motivated Herdman, who was appointed on Jan 3, to bring joy to a football-obsessed nation of more than 280 million.

“What I’ll tell you is, from even being on the hospital bed, you could tell the people here were amazing and passionate,” the 50-year-old told The Straits Times in an interview shortly after the 2026 Asean Championship draw in Jakarta on Jan 15.

“They know who you are. They know you’re the coach and they’re wishing you good luck when they see you. Growing up in England, that’s normal. Living in North America or in New Zealand, which is a rugby country, or a hockey country, that’s not normal.

“Here, from the 55-year-old female nurse to the 12-year-old boy, everybody cares about what we do on a football pitch, and they want it so bad, and you feel that. It’s a huge opportunity for all the men that will wear the Garuda shirt.”

Herdman – whose claim to fame is that he had led the Canadian men’s team to their first World Cup appearance in 36 years in 2022 – replaces Dutch great Patrick Kluivert, who was dismissed in October 2025 following less than a year in charge after Indonesia failed to qualify for the 2026 World Cup.

Earlier, Herdman also took the Canadian women’s team to the 2015 World Cup quarter-finals on home soil, besides leading them to bronze medals at the 2012 and 2016 Olympics.

Before that, he was in charge of the New Zealand women’s national team from 2006 to 2011.

He had been out of management since resigning as head coach of Major League Soccer club Toronto FC in November 2024.

While the July 24-Aug 26 Asean Championship will mark his first major assignment with Indonesia, the ultimate goal is qualification for the 2030 World Cup, with Herdman saying there are no excuses.

But with lofty targets and a passionate fan base comes intense scrutiny.

Even at the Asean Championship tournament draw – where Indonesia were drawn into Group A alongside defending champions Vietnam, Singapore, Cambodia and Brunei or Timor-Leste – the attention that football garners in the country was on full display.

Herdman drew the full attention of more than 100 Indonesian media personnel, with all eyes and cameras focused on him at the tournament’s official broadcast partner MNC’s studio.

Indonesia have never played at the World Cup since gaining independence in 1945 but have made huge strides in the continent, capitalising on longstanding ties with its former colonial power the Netherlands.

A host of Dutch-born players with Indonesian heritage have been fast-tracked for naturalisation. Under rules set by world governing body FIFA, a player may represent another country if they have lived there continuously for five years, or if at least one parent or grandparent was born there.

Of the 11 players who started for the Indonesia national team in their 1-0 World Cup qualifying loss to Iraq in October, nine were born in Europe (eight in the Netherlands and one in Finland).

They reached the knockout stages of the Asian Cup for the first time in 2023, when they were eliminated in the last 16 by Australia, and were the only side from South-east Asia to reach the fourth round of Asia’s 2026 World Cup qualifiers.

Herdman, however, said that he would not be biased towards the Dutch diaspora.

He said: “I don’t see passports. I see players. I think this is the critical thing. The passports are irrelevant. What I have to see is who is playing at the highest level of football, whose career is telling the strongest story.

“That might be a 21-year-old who’s playing every week in the Indonesian league and scoring every week, but they just haven’t been given that chance yet. So that person may be more important than this person playing in the Bundesliga or the Eredivisie.”

“Many players in local leagues don’t get the opportunity they deserve and it takes a coach with the courage to give them the opportunity,” he added.

A former sports science lecturer at Northumbria University in Britain, Herdman has set himself the task of instilling a winner’s mindset in the Indonesian squad, which he believes he was able to accomplish with Canada.

“We can transplant plenty of things we’ve done in Canada, things we’ve done as part of our World Cup preparation, Gold Cup preparation, Olympics preparation, and bring that qualification habit to Indonesia,” he added.

Having already witnessed the passion of the Indonesian people, Herdman hopes to see history made. He feels that the scale of support could make the achievement even more special.

Herdman said: “When you consider the experiences I’ve had qualifying a team for a World Cup, and when you have that moment and the country of over 30 million people go ‘wow, we’re here’.

“And then you consider how that would feel with 280 million people in a country where everyone loves football, you have to see that as a genuinely exciting opportunity.

“I would love to see that.”