A Life Lived Through Football: The Journey of a Passionate Journalist
Before the final whistle ever blew on Tabloid BOLA’s storied print run, one young journalist had already found a home in its newsroom. The journey began in 2017, inside the pages of Indonesia’s legendary football tabloid, and ran right up until its last edition in December 2018. When the presses stopped, the work did not.
From there came a natural progression: GOAL, freelance assignments for FIFA, and a role inside the media department of the ASEAN Football Federation (AFF). The press box widened into a continent. The voice behind the keyboard also moved behind the microphone, calling Indonesian football live as a play-by-play commentator from 2017 onward. History, as it turned out, wasn’t just a degree from the Faculty of Cultural Sciences at Universitas Padjadjaran, Bandung; it was something to be narrated in real time, one match at a time.
Bandung, Persib, and a Childhood Obsession
Football identity rarely follows a straight line. Geography, family, and childhood heroes pull in different directions, and somewhere in that tug-of-war a fan is born.
In this case, the father played for a traditional rival club. On paper, allegiance should have followed blood. Life intervened. Nine years in Bandung rewrote the script. Persib became more than a team; it became a spiritual home. The spark arrived in 2006, in the gloves of Thai goalkeeper Kosin Hathairattanakool. Watching Kosin, and watching how Bandung’s people claimed Persib as an extension of themselves, turned a passing interest into a lifelong bond.
Globally, the first true love wore black and blue. Ronaldo and Inter Milan defined an era of devotion, the kind forged in the heartbreak of near-misses and injury-plagued seasons. Inter didn’t just win or lose; they taught what it meant to suffer with a club.
Dutch Roots, Oranje Dreams
The map stretches further north to Rotterdam. Dutch roots made Feyenoord the natural choice, a club that fit like an heirloom. With it came an unshakable connection to the Netherlands national team, a relationship built on both agony and awe.
The 2010 World Cup final sits there as a scar and a badge of honor. So does a 2013 friendly against Indonesia, watched live, when Oranje crossed paths with the homeland. Oranje Indonesia watch parties cemented the ritual: same colors, same songs, oceans apart.
Certain players leave a mark that never fades. Arjen Robben, with his ruthless left foot and relentless cutting inside. Giovanni van Bronckhorst, captain, leader, and scorer of one of the greatest World Cup goals ever struck. They remain the ultimate favorites, the names that still light up any conversation about Dutch football.
Football Manager 2005 added another twist. Hours spent on that game opened the door to Athletic Bilbao and its unique philosophy. A club that insisted on doing things its own way, rooted in identity and tradition, became an enduring fascination.
Beyond the Pitch: Bulls, Warriors, and Basketball Icons
The obsession doesn’t stop at the touchline. Basketball runs parallel.
Allegiance in the NBA splits between the Chicago Bulls and the Golden State Warriors, but it’s less about logos and more about legends. Michael Jordan’s relentless will, Derrick Rose’s fragile brilliance, Stephen Curry’s revolution from the three-point line – each left a fingerprint on how sport is seen, felt, and understood.
Craft, Camera, and the Asian Game
Years in the game have built more than a byline. The expertise runs deep in Indonesian football and Liga 1, from data insights to long-form features that dig beneath the surface. The lens widens across Southeast and East Asia: Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, Japan, Korea – leagues, players, and stories mapped out across a region that rarely sleeps when football is on.
The toolkit is modern and restless. Digital and social media content, Instagram reels, podcasts. Player profiling and feature writing. Live broadcasting and interviewing. Photography. The ability to move between languages, even at a basic level in français and español, only adds more doors to knock on and more stories to tell.
Chasing Players, Chasing Stories
Some careers keep you in one city. This one demanded a backpack.
Combining a love of travel with professional assignments turned work trips into personal pilgrimages. Tracking Indonesian players scattered across Southeast Asia and Europe became a mission: find them, understand them, tell their stories.
The route map reads like a footballing rail pass: Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, France, Japan. Each stop meant another Indonesian player carving out a career abroad, another interview, another glimpse into the sacrifices behind the headlines. Those conversations, those long journeys for a single story, form a body of work that refuses to fade with time.
An XI Built on Memory and Admiration
Ask any football romantic for an all-time XI and you’ll start an argument. This one is no different, but a few names are non-negotiable.
In goal, it’s Manuel Neuer or Rogério Ceni, two keepers who redefined what it means to stand between the posts in completely different ways. Ahead of them, Javier Zanetti’s endurance, Sergio Ramos’ edge, N’Golo Kanté’s tireless engine, Toni Kroos’ metronomic control. On the flanks and up front, Arjen Robben, Mo Salah, and Zlatan Ibrahimović – pure chaos, goals, and charisma.
To knit it all together, Juan Román Riquelme or Michael Laudrup, artists who saw passes others never knew existed. Giants like Lothar Matthäus, Zinedine Zidane, and Ronaldo stay just outside this personal XI, not for lack of greatness, but precisely because they inhabit almost everyone else’s dream team already.
In the end, that’s the thread running through it all: a life shaped by games, players, and journeys, from Bandung to Rotterdam, from local stadiums to international press boxes. The story keeps moving, one match, one interview, one new talent discovered on a distant pitch at a time.
