tvOnenews.com – Coming as a new coach, John Herdman immediately paid serious attention to the foundation Indonesian National Team and the reasons behind results that have not been optimal in the past.
The British coach did not need long to carry out a comprehensive evaluation of the Garuda Squad.
Herdman is actively monitoring the 2025/2026 Super League matches, discussing with PSSI technical staff, and even flying directly to Europe to see the condition of the players playing abroad.
- tvOnenews.com – Ilham Giovanni
From this process, he found one important conclusion: the failure of the Indonesian National Team in this era Patrick Kluivert not caused by a lack of quality players.
In his assessment, Herdman actually saw that Indonesia had very strong capital, especially in the defense sector.
He even placed the depth of the Indonesian National Team squad at the elite level in Asia when talking about the quality of tier one and tier two players.
“Yes, I think you know when you evaluate at AFC, I have a very clear understanding of what gives you the opportunity to be successful, and that has to do with tier one and tier two players,” said John Herdman, quoted from the official YouTube channel of the Indonesian National Team.
According to him, the Indonesian national team player pool is currently at the top of Asia. Herdman specifically highlighted the depth of the squad which is dominated by international quality defenders.
“The depth of our tier one and two players, I think we rank fourth or fifth in the AFC in terms of the quality of our player pool,” he continued.
With this foundation, Herdman emphasized that he did not agree with the opinion that the Indonesian National Team lacked talent.
Instead, he chose a realistic approach: building a team based on existing strengths, not imposing a scheme that doesn’t suit the player’s character.
“In my opinion, every coach has to work with what he has, not with what he thinks he should have,” emphasized Herdman.
“If this is the core and strength of our team, we will build around it. So, I think, clearly, there are no more excuses about our talent,” he continued.
Next Page:
From the results of this evaluation, Herdman revealed the main factors which according to him were the cause of the failure of the Indonesian National Team in the previous 2026 World Cup Qualification cycle.
