Herdman Explains Why Several Persib Players Were Left Out of the FIFA ASEAN Cup 2026: Profile, Not Attitude

The press room in Jakarta was colder than it needed to be. I write a beat slower than a heartbeat so I never miss the moment a boot touches grass, but no boots touched grass that afternoon — only a head coach behind a microphone, talking about the people who were not there.

John Herdman brought up the words "attitude" and "commitment" himself, before a single reporter could ask. For anyone who has worked the beat long enough, that is a signal. Nobody builds a fence in front of a door no one has knocked on.

An opening match and a contested list

Indonesia's squad for the 2026 FIFA ASEAN Cup was announced, and Marc Klok was not in it. Neither was Beckham Putra. A handful of other familiar domestic names were missing too. The team opens against Singapore at Gelora Bung Karno — home soil, the biggest stands in the region, and the highest expectations in years.

In Indonesia, leaving out a Persib Bandung player is never a one-line story. Persib is one of the most heavily supported clubs in the country. The Bobotoh — the name Persib supporters use for themselves — did not stay quiet. They read every name on the list, counted every slot, and asked the question any supporter community in the world would ask: why were our people left behind?

A question left unanswered will find its own answer. And the easiest answer to reach for is usually the ugliest one.

What Herdman said

The Englishman did not take a detour. He said every call comes back to player profiles and the tactical needs of the team. He said each tournament has different requirements, and this one demands a different type of player than the last. He said no player was dropped over attitude or commitment.

That is a very specific denial. And in this trade, a specific denial only gets spoken when a specific accusation is already in circulation.

He also left two doors open. First, the national-team door is always open to anyone. Second, consistent club-level form will be the reference point for future call-ups. As communication, those are two pressure valves placed exactly where they need to be: they promise no starting shirt, but they promise a path.

Where the word "attitude" came from

A coach rarely volunteers a problem nobody has raised. Herdman's pre-emptive denial of an attitude issue tells us that before the press conference, a different story already existed: that the dropped players — and specifically the Persib group — lacked commitment, or that some favouritism had crept into the selection process.

There is no evidence for either claim in what he said. But the existence of the question matters more than the answer. It shows where the pressure is coming from, and it shows what the staff is defending.

In a single move, Herdman protected three things: the reputations of the players left out, the relationship between Persib and the federation, and his own authority to select freely. Those three things rarely come apart. Lose one and you lose all three.

The right wing, 1v1 duels and a system with little preparation time

The most valuable detail in the press conference was not in the denial. It was in a single sentence describing how the team will play.

Herdman said the side will play fast and direct. He said he picked a right winger who holds width and wins 1v1 duels, rather than an inside forward who drifts between the lines. A small sentence that carries an entire philosophy.

Holding width means stretching the opposing defensive line horizontally. Stretching it horizontally means creating isolated duels on the flanks, and from those duels, early crosses or cut-backs into the second line. It does not require a classic number ten sitting between the lines waiting for the ball. It requires pace, stamina and the ability to win in tight spaces.

For a national team with only a few days in camp, this is a rational choice. Complex systems need training time that international windows do not provide. Direct, fast football does not need many sessions to assemble — it needs the right kind of player.

Marc Klok is a deeper, ball-circulating midfielder who holds structure. In a system that prizes verticality and speed, that profile does not automatically have a place, however high the individual quality. To be clear: this is my inference, not Herdman's words. He did not assign profiles to individual omissions, and assigning them on his behalf is an easy way to read the situation wrong.

What is missing from the report

There is a noticeable gap. There is no data.

No expected goals. No expected goals against. No passes allowed per defensive action, the metric usually used to measure pressing intensity. No pass-completion percentage, no duels won in the opposition half.

Which means we have a clear tactical philosophy, a coherently stated rationale, and not one piece of quantitative evidence to verify that a fast, direct approach actually suits the specific opponents in this tournament.

That is not the coach's fault. A press conference is not a data presentation. But the reader needs to know where they are standing: this is a statement of intent, not yet a statement of effect.

And there is an obvious tactical risk attached. A system that only attacks wide and only goes forward can be neutralised by a deep, compact low block that concedes space in front of it to seal the flanks. In that scenario a team needs a second creative route — set pieces, central combinations, a shot from distance. The report does not tell us whether this team has one.

A note on the source

Everything above comes from a single VIVA report. For the direct quotes from the press conference, reliability is relatively high. For the framing around the event, more caution is warranted. Two points deserve a question mark.

First, the report groups Eliano Reijnders among the Persib players. In reality, Eliano Reijnders plays in the Netherlands and is a naturalised Indonesia international — he is not on Persib Bandung's books. This is almost certainly an editorial error, and that error quietly inflates the "Persib players were dropped" angle.

Second, the "2026 FIFA ASEAN Cup" being staged in late September diverges from the traditional calendar of the ASEAN Championship, which normally runs in November and December under the AFF system. This could be a genuine change in format, scheduling and branding. It could also be a source inaccuracy. Readers should check official announcements before treating the detail as fact.

I raise this not to nitpick. I raise it because a report with the wrong date and the wrong club will steer the debate in the wrong direction.

The armband and Idzes' injury

A quieter detail with a strong stabilising effect: Jay Idzes is absent through injury, and the captaincy went to Kevin Diks, a player based in Europe.

This is a no-drama handling. The staff chose a replacement in silence, kept the leadership structure intact, and announced it as a technical fact. Herdman also confirmed that all 23 players on the list are fit and ready.

Announcing a fully fit 23 has a subtle defensive function. It pre-empts a second wave of criticism: that the absences were really about injuries rather than tactics. Anyone planning to make that argument finds the door already shut.

The long game: domestic and overseas

Setting the list itself aside, this story exposes the main structural axis of Indonesian football today: the balance between Europe-based diaspora and naturalised players, and players developed in the domestic league.

Herdman's explanation — fast, direct, width-holding — is in effect a technical argument for favouring players who fit a modern European template. There is nothing professionally wrong with that. But it carries a transmission effect few people mention: if domestic-league players are persistently left out, the perceived value of the domestic pathway thins in the eyes of young players and their families.

A national team must always choose between two correct things. Correct for the system, or correct for the community that sustains the system.

What I took home

One and a half metres from the touchline, and still enough to feel the breath of the match. I do not take sides; I only record how the beer falls and how a generation swears.

That cold afternoon in Jakarta, I heard a coach explain that he picks players by tactical profile. I believe him. I also believe the supporters counting their own players' names on the list, because they are counting with something else — with memory, with a few hundred kilometres of road, with afternoons standing on the terraces.

Those two ways of counting do not share a unit. And the opener against Singapore at Gelora Bung Karno will translate them into a common language, whichever direction it goes.

Indonesia will play direct, fast football, holding width and hunting 1v1 duels. If it works, the word "attitude" will vanish from the headlines within hours. If it does not, the word will come back — and this time it will no longer be asking about the players' attitude.

Can a squad selected by tactical profile stand up to a stadium filled with local memory — or is that stadium the thing that should have been in the profile all along?