The Silence at Senayan: Kevin Diks and the September Rhythm of Indonesia

A Tuesday Afternoon Without Shouting

People remember goals. I remember the silences between two beats of the ball.

On the afternoon of Tuesday, September 22, 2026, I stood outside the training fence of Madya Stadium, Senayan, Jakarta. There were no drums. There were no thousands of phones raised to capture a sprint. There was only the sound of a ball bouncing on the slightly damp tropical grass, and the voice of a 29-year-old man speaking with a calm so measured that I had to write it down verbatim.

Kevin Diks, captain of the Indonesia national team, had just finished training. He stood there, beside the water coolers, answering a question about the rivalry between Indonesia and Malaysia — a subject the entire Southeast Asian region was waiting for, a battle that fans treated as the early final of the FIFA ASEAN Cup 2026. And his answer was the first thing that made me stop.

"Yes, of course. I have heard about it. But we will face Singapore first."

It was a very short sentence. In journalism, sentences like that are usually passed over, because they lack provocation, produce no shocking statement, offer nothing to build a headline around for an evening broadcast. But to me — a man who sat in a corner of Camp des Loges throughout the 2026-2026 season, who stood in Kazan in 2026 counting the shots of a young defender — sentences like that are the real data. Because they speak of rhythm. Because they speak of order. Because they speak of a collective's ability to avoid being swept up by the noise of the outside world.

A week earlier, I had read dozens of Indonesian and Malaysian articles with the same structure: counting the days until the derby, recalling the head-to-head history, reposting last year's collisions, interviewing retired players from both nations about the "flavour" of the match. Everything pointed to a single destination — the Malaysia game. And in the meantime, people had almost forgotten that the tournament contained three other opponents, including the most organizationally solid side in Southeast Asia over the past decade: Singapore.

I have always believed something I learned during my years working in Europe: a team does not lose because of a derby. A team loses because it loses its rhythm before the derby arrives. And the way Kevin Diks answered the question about Malaysia — by pulling everything back to the opening match against Singapore — is exactly the kind of internal signal that outsiders do not read.

Context: one tournament, four teams, and a nation under strain

The FIFA ASEAN Cup 2026 — the tournament people still call the AFF Cup after decades — has arrived with a restructured format. Group A this year comprises Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Bangladesh. Four teams, a closed group stage, and, as everyone predicted before the tournament, the two progression spots will almost certainly be decided by the results of the top three — Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore.

One thing must be said at the outset, to avoid any later misunderstanding: Indonesia enters this tournament from a position fundamentally different from its own position ten years ago. They are no longer a team waiting for opponents to make mistakes. They are a team with depth, with quality, and above all — with a foreign-player recruitment system that has been operating long enough that it can no longer be dismissed as a "stopgap solution." Kevin Diks, Jay Idzes, names like Mitchell Baker and Luke Vickery — these are not random signings. This is a process.

I have watched that process from a distance, and I can say that the remarkable thing is not that Indonesia has more foreign-born players. The remarkable thing is that they are gradually learning how to make those players no longer need to be "heroes" — but merely components of a machine. This is the shift from import-the-talent thinking to build-the-system thinking. And that process, in my experience, is far slower than signing a contract.

Group A also contains Bangladesh — a team many treat as a "default three points." But at the Southeast Asian regional level, no match is a default. I have witnessed teams considered weaker produce results that forced the entire tournament to be rewritten. Southeast Asian football has a characteristic that Europeans find hard to understand: the quality gap between teams is compressed very tightly within a short tournament, especially when climate, travel, and a congested schedule are factored in.

And Singapore.

This is the team that the domestic Indonesian press has devoted the least space to in the weeks before the tournament. But it is also the team that, if I were an opposition analyst, I would spend all my time studying. Singapore organizes. Singapore is disciplined. Singapore does not self-collapse. And most importantly — Singapore knows how to play with the pressure of being considered the underdog, a skill not every Southeast Asian side possesses.

Kevin Diks understands this. That is why he spoke of Singapore before he spoke of Malaysia.

Core: The captain, the armband, and a silent handover

There is one detail that most reports skimmed over far too quickly: Kevin Diks is not Indonesia's permanent captain. He was given the armband in the context of Jay Idzes's absence. In the football world, this is the kind of event people call "administrative news" — a detail with no emotional emphasis, no drama, no advertising value. But to me, that was the most important detail of the entire Tuesday press conference.

Because I have seen too many teams — from those in my youthful Belgrade days to the PSG of the Neymar and Mbappé season — and I know one thing: the armband, when passed to another man, is never merely a substitution. It is a test. It tests whether a team can function without its familiar guide. And it tests whether the man receiving the armband can hold the rhythm of a collective already filled with new faces.

Diks's words gave me two pieces of information. First, he called being chosen captain "a great honour" — a standard formulation, nothing special. Second, and more importantly, he said that Jay Idzes's absence "demands that I and my teammates take on greater responsibility."

Read that sentence carefully. He did not say "I must take on greater responsibility." He said "I and my teammates." It is a small grammatical difference but a very large difference in the culture of a team. A true captain is not the one who carries the burden. A true captain is the one who makes the entire collective feel that this burden is also theirs.

I have witnessed four generations of players. They differ in their feet, they are alike in their loneliness.

People often assume that a European player returning to wear an Asian national shirt brings confidence and skill. But what is rarely said is that they also bring a very particular loneliness — the loneliness of a man who must prove he belongs here, that carrying two bloodlines does not leave him standing between two worlds belonging to neither. Kevin Diks was born in the Netherlands, raised in the Dutch development system, and plays in the Bundesliga for Borussia Mönchengladbach. He speaks Dutch, German, English. His Indonesian — I suspect, and I have grounds for suspecting — is not his mother tongue.

And yet he is captain. At a press conference in Jakarta. Speaking about leading a collective that includes both those raised in Indonesia and those raised in Europe.

That is not a role that is given. That is a role that is tested.

And the way Diks tests it — by constantly pulling attention toward the collective, toward the specific match, toward Singapore — is the way of a man who has understood that a new captain is not permitted to occupy the centre. He must make himself as unobtrusive as possible, so that newcomers like Mitchell Baker and Luke Vickery feel they have space.

The training ground never lies. It only whispers to those who stay behind.

Core (continued): Two new strikers and a structural problem

Mitchell Baker and Luke Vickery. These two names appeared in Kevin Diks's answer as an aside, but in truth they shape the entire tactical problem for Indonesia at this tournament.

Let me be clear about what I observe, even though I am not present at every training session: a team that introduces two new strikers immediately before a regional national-team tournament is facing a very specific structural problem. That problem is not "are these two strikers good." That problem is "which system will feed them, and for how long."

At club level, a new striker can be integrated gradually through training, through cup matches against weaker sides, through substitute appearances in the 70th minute. At national-team level in a short regional tournament — with three group matches and at most two knockout games — there is no room for gradual integration. A new striker is either ready or is a gap.

This is why I believe Indonesia will not play in a way that depends on these two strikers shining. If they do, it is a bonus. If they do not, immediately, the team must still win. That is the criterion of a mature side.

And this connects directly to Diks's remark: "We know what we have to do. We have a mission and we are clear on our mindset, our focus, and our goal."

I have heard this line many times in my career. It is what players say when a coach has drilled a single idea into their heads and they do not want to reveal details. It is not a good answer. It is a correct answer. And in football, a correct answer is often worth more than a good one.

But I want to go a little further. There is an aspect that Southeast Asian analysts rarely discuss, and I consider it important: the difference in biological rhythm between players arriving from Europe and players competing in domestic leagues.

European-based players — Diks, those playing in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany — are accustomed to a very different match rhythm. They are used to making decisions in 0.4 seconds, to compressed space, to pressure on every touch. When they come to play in Southeast Asia, there is a great temptation: they can slow down, because opponents give them more time. And when a team has many such players, the whole team can slip into a state of "waiting."

Conversely, players in domestic leagues are used to a different rhythm — the rhythm of matches with more space, longer sequences, less moment-to-moment pressure.

Indonesia's problem — and I say this as an observer, not a critic — is how to make these two rhythms mesh. That is not a problem of talent. It is a problem of time. And time, in a regional tournament, is what no one has enough of.

Kevin Diks, with his Bundesliga experience, is the man who can help mesh these two rhythms — not by slowing down to match his teammates, but by pulling his teammates up to his rhythm. That is the work of a captain, and it is work I believe he understands.

Core (continued): Pressure as a technical variable

The most notable answer of the entire press conference, in my view, was the one about pressure.

"Pressure is part of football. I have played many matches in Europe with pressure, so for me it is not a problem. We try to focus on our mission and our goal."

This is the kind of sentence people usually skim. It sounds like a template answer. But I want to spend a few lines analysing why it is not a template answer.

In Southeast Asia, "pressure" in national-team football is an almost physical concept. It is not European-style pressure — where a player is criticised on television but can still go home, close the door, and live in a private space. In Southeast Asia, pressure is a communal thing. It comes from family, from neighbours, from the street vendor, from messages on social media, from the fact that an entire nation knows your face when you step outside.

For a player like Kevin Diks — raised in Europe — this kind of pressure is a new experience. That is why I believe he is telling the truth when he says he does not feel weighed down. He has not been inside that system long enough to feel it the way a homegrown Indonesian player feels it.

But this is also a risk. A captain who does not feel the community's pressure may unwittingly drift apart from teammates who feel it every day. And Diks's real test is not "can he withstand pressure." His real test is "does he understand that his teammates endure a different kind of pressure, and does he know how to shield them from it."

That is the work of a leader. Not to appear pressure-free. But to absorb pressure for others.

Russia was strangely silent. And it was precisely that silence that spoke the most.

In Kazan in 2026, I learned that the pressure of a national team does not lie in the matches. It lies in the gaps between matches — the evenings at the hotel, the silent meals, the long bus rides where no one speaks. People measure pressure by scorelines, but real pressure lives in places no one measures.

Kevin Diks will learn this. Perhaps he already has. But he will learn it the Southeast Asian way, not the Bundesliga way.

Contrarian: The obsession with Malaysia is a cognitive trap

This is the section I want to spend the most time on, because it is the section where I believe most Southeast Asian fans and media are stuck.

In the weeks before the FIFA ASEAN Cup 2026, the Indonesia-Malaysia topic consumed almost the entire discussion space. People counted days. People recalled past meetings. People built comparison videos. People recounted collisions, last-minute goals, painful eliminations. And by doing so, they granted that match a psychological weight far beyond its point value.

Here I want to be very clear, and I say this as a man who has followed both regional and European football for over five decades: a derby in the group stage is not a final. It is merely a three-point match. And how a team prepares for it decides how that team prepares for the rest of the tournament.

I have seen this in Europe. Paris, that season, taught me that Champions League stumbles begin in August.

In the 2026-2026 season, I sat in a corner of Camp des Loges every morning. I recorded every combination drill between Marquinhos and Presnel Kimpembe. The night PSG beat Barcelona 4-0, the entire press area went mad. But I focused on one detail: how the defensive unit supported each other, how they shifted as a block, how they spoke to each other with pointing fingers. That was the thing few noticed. That was what I wrote about.

And when PSG lost 1-6 at Camp Nou, I did not criticise anyone. I went to the stadium maintenance worker — the man who had seen the players stand in silence in the tunnel for twenty minutes before kickoff. He told me they said nothing. Not one of them spoke. And that was the moment I understood the match had been decided before the ball rolled.

I wrote a piece about collective psychological pressure. I blamed no individual. Because the problem was not an individual. The problem was the rhythm of a collective that had deluded itself into believing a beautiful win had solved everything.

Now, applying that lesson to Southeast Asia.

The Indonesia national team of 2026 has a very good chance to go deep in this tournament. But that chance does not lie in the Malaysia match. It lies in the Singapore match — the opener. Because if Indonesia beats Singapore, they go into the Malaysia match with points, with confidence, with rhythm. And if Indonesia drops points against Singapore, the Malaysia match becomes a "must-win" — and nothing is more dangerous in regional football than a "must-win."

That derby year, no one shouted. Yet the stadium never spoke so much.

Kevin Diks understands this. The evidence is that he spoke of Singapore first. The evidence is that he refused to be swept into the Malaysia-Malaysia-Malaysia narrative the whole region was waiting for. The evidence is that he spoke of "mission" and "goal" — two systemic words, not two emotional words.

The reverse is also true of Malaysia. Malaysia is also being swept into this narrative. And if Malaysia lets it dominate their preparation, they too will lose rhythm. In regional tournaments, the winner is often not the team that plays best in the derby. The winner is the team that does not let the derby break its rhythm beforehand.

Here I want to address another aspect I consider even more important: the impact of communal pressure on young players and newcomers.

Mitchell Baker and Luke Vickery, if they are truly new to the Indonesian national-team system, will enter this tournament with a kind of pressure they have never experienced. Not the pressure of football. The pressure of becoming a symbol. The pressure of tens of millions watching your every stride. The pressure that you are not permitted to err.

For players raised in Europe, this pressure can trigger a very specific response: they play tighter, safer, with fewer risks. They try not to make mistakes rather than trying to make a difference. That is a normal psychological response, and it can diminish a striker's value enormously.

This is why I believe Kevin Diks's role as captain will not lie in duels on the pitch. It will lie in the moments before matches, in the dressing room, in private conversations. The moments no camera records. The moments only those inside the room know.

People remember goals. I remember the silences between two beats of the ball.

Core (continued): Reading the Singapore match as a rhythm problem

So where is Singapore dangerous?

I want to avoid "Singapore is well-organised" analyses — because that is a true but meaningless sentence. I want to go into a more specific detail.

Singapore over the past decade has built a very clear identity in defence: they accept conceding territory, they shift as a block, and they minimise opponents' fast transition sequences by committing tactical fouls in low-danger zones. In other words, Singapore does not try to win the match in the first half. They try to make the match uncomfortable, slow, and long.

For a team like Indonesia — built around players used to the fast rhythm of Europe — this is a very specific challenge. Because Indonesia will want to play fast, but Singapore will do everything to deny them speed. And when a team is denied its rhythm, it begins to lose patience. It begins to play longer balls. It begins to push higher. It begins to expose gaps.

That is when a match like this can turn.

I have seen this many times in Europe. Big teams lose to small teams not because they are technically inferior. They lose because they are not patient. Modern football rewards patience, but crowds do not want patience. Crowds want goals. And players — though they would not admit it — always hear the crowd.

This is why the Singapore match will be Indonesia's real test, not the Malaysia match.

If Indonesia beats Singapore with a goal in the 85th minute, that is a good result. If Indonesia beats Singapore 4-0 in the first half, that may be a worrying sign. Because football is not a sequence of beautiful moments. Football is a process of accumulating pressure, waiting for the moment, and exploiting it when it comes.

One beat does not make a song. One match does not make a football life.

Contrarian (continued): What Southeast Asian media does not say about Kevin Diks

There is one thing I noticed when listening to Kevin Diks speak: he spoke in English, not Indonesian.

This is not a small detail. To me, it is a very large one.

At a press conference in Jakarta, before Indonesian media, a captain of the Indonesia national team answered in English. And the striking thing is that no one present seemed uncomfortable. This tells me something very important about Indonesian football today: they have reached a stage where a captain not speaking the native language is no longer a problem. That means the system has changed deeply enough that "being Indonesian" is no longer defined by language.

But it also means something else. It means there is a gap — a gap between the captain and part of the team, between the captain and part of the fans, between the captain and those carrying the pressure he says he does not feel.

This gap is not necessarily bad. But it is something that needs managing.

I have witnessed four generations of players. They differ in their feet, they are alike in their loneliness.

The loneliness of a captain who cannot speak the language of those he must lead is one of the hardest-to-see lonelinesses in football. It does not show in photographs. It does not show in statistics. It only shows in small moments — when a teammate makes a joke he does not understand, when a reporter asks about a historical event he does not know, when a fan shouts a chant he does not recognise.

Kevin Diks will have to learn to live with this gap. Not by trying to erase it — that is impossible — but by turning it into a tool. Because a man outside the system can see things those inside it cannot. And sometimes, in football, seeing what others do not see is precisely the work of a captain.

Core (continued): What makes a team capable of winning in Southeast Asia

I want to use this section to discuss a subject I believe is most misunderstood in Southeast Asian football: what actually makes a team capable of winning.

The popular answer is: a star. A prolific striker. A brilliant coach. A golden generation.

All are true. None is sufficient.

A winning team in Southeast Asia — and this holds at other levels too — is a team that can withstand three different kinds of pressure: the pressure of pre-tournament expectation, the pressure of in-tournament surprise, and the pressure of late-tournament fatigue. These three pressures demand three different qualities, and very few teams possess all three.

The pressure of pre-tournament expectation demands calm. This is the pressure Indonesia faces right now. And this is why Kevin Diks's answer about "not feeling pressure" matters so much. Not because it is literally true — he certainly feels pressure — but because it is a signal that the team is trying to create a calm space around itself.

The pressure of in-tournament surprise — an early conceded goal, a red card, an injury — demands adaptability. This is what Southeast Asian teams often lack, because they rely on plans more than on reactions.

The pressure of late-tournament fatigue demands squad depth. This is where Indonesia has an advantage over Malaysia and Singapore, thanks to its foreign recruitment process.

If I had to predict, I would say this tournament will be decided by the third kind of pressure. Not by the derby. Not by the stars. But by which team can hold its rhythm when it reaches the final matches — when the body aches, when the mind tires, when everything becomes heavier.

And this is why I pay close attention to how Kevin Diks speaks of "mission" and "goal." These are not the words of a match. They are the words of a tournament. They are the words of a team thinking about the entire journey, not just a derby.

Contrarian (continued): Silence as a health indicator

There is one thing I have carried with me through nearly thirty years of covering major sporting events: healthy teams are not loud.

This sounds paradoxical, especially in an age when social media rewards noise. But it is true. Healthy teams have an internal rhythm they do not need to announce. They do not need shocking statements. They do not need to declare they will be champions. They simply do their work.

Russia was strangely silent. And it was precisely that silence that spoke the most.

At the 2026 World Cup, I was sent to Russia to cover the France national team. In June, in Kazan, I discovered something no one noticed: Benjamin Pavard, a right-back, often stayed on the training pitch until nine in the evening. He practised long-range shooting alone. I counted fourteen shots from outside the box per session, over three consecutive days. I recorded the number without knowing what use it would be.

When Pavard scored a crucial goal against Argentina in the round of 16 — a magnificent long-range strike — I did not write about the goal. I wrote about "the nine o'clock detail in Kazan." That goal was not the result of luck. It was the result of a process repeated in silence, before the world knew the man's name.

That is what I mean about silence.

Silence is not a lack of vitality. Silence is another form of strength. And in football, the team that knows how to keep silent is usually the team that knows what it is doing.

I am not inside the Indonesia dressing room. I do not know what they say to each other. But I know one thing: when Kevin Diks refuses to play the regional press's declaration game, he is sending a signal. He is saying that his team does not need to prove anything with words.

That is a good signal. It is the signal of a team that has matured.

Core (continued): The role of Borussia Mönchengladbach and the Bundesliga rhythm

Kevin Diks plays for Borussia Mönchengladbach. I want to spend a few lines on how important this is for the Indonesia national team.

This German club has a very specific philosophy: playing with high intensity, shifting as a block, and focusing on controlling space rather than controlling the ball. This is a philosophy that demands excellent game-reading, because the player must constantly decide where he should be, not merely where to run.

Diks is a defender. And in modern football, the defender is the most misunderstood position.

Here I want to raise a view I have carried for years: the passing ability of goalkeepers and defenders is deified, while basic qualities like reading situations and holding position receive little attention. A defender can have perfect passing numbers yet be regularly beaten at decisive moments. And a defender with average passing numbers who reads the game well can be the pillar of a championship side.

Diks, from what I have observed in Bundesliga matches, is the second type. He is not the man who creates beautiful moments. He is the man who makes others' moments safer. And this is exactly the type a Southeast Asian national team needs — not to create moments, but to prevent them.

I remember sitting in a stadium in Europe, watching a defender for ninety minutes without a single standout play. After the match, a young colleague asked why I paid attention to him. I said: "Because he allowed the opponent no chance. And that is harder than scoring."

That is what I think of Kevin Diks.

Connecting rhythm and the Southeast Asian environment

There is one thing European players in Southeast Asia must always adapt to: humidity.

This may sound trivial, but it is not. Humidity in Jakarta in September and October is a very real physical issue. It slows heart-rate recovery. It increases sweat loss. It makes every sprint more expensive. And it throws off the biological rhythm of a European player — optimised for a temperate climate.

Kevin Diks, with experience in the Netherlands and Germany, will have to learn to play in these conditions. Not for one match — for three matches, four, five in a row. This is a problem of fitness and nutrition, and it is one Southeast Asian teams learned to solve long ago, but players newly arrived from Europe have not.

I once witnessed a very similar case at another team: a player returning from Europe played superbly in the first match, decently in the second, and vanished in the third. Not because he was poor. But because his body was not prepared for that different biological rhythm.

This is why I believe the Indonesia national team will need to manage Diks's minutes carefully. Not because he is not good enough. But because he needs to be kept at his peak for the most important matches.

And this is also why I believe in my thesis that the tournament will be decided by the third kind of pressure — fatigue.

The derby and what no one says

I want to return to the Indonesia-Malaysia theme once more, this time to discuss an aspect I consider important but rarely mentioned: the impact of the derby on the other teams in the group.

When Indonesia and Malaysia focus all their attention on each other, Singapore and Bangladesh gain a huge advantage: they can prepare in silence. They can study Indonesia without being studied back. They can arrive at the match with the mindset of a team with nothing to lose.

In football, this is a massive advantage. I have seen small teams achieve unbelievable results simply because they were allowed to prepare in silence while the big teams were busy watching each other.

That derby year, no one shouted. Yet the stadium never spoke so much.

Singapore will come to Jakarta in October with a very clear head. They will know exactly what they need to do. They will not be distracted by the war between Indonesia and Malaysia. And that makes them the most dangerous opponent in the group.

This is why I believe Kevin Diks's answer — "we will face Singapore first" — is not merely a diplomatic reply. It is a strategic reply. It shows the Indonesian team has been prepared correctly. It shows their coach understands this group better than the press writes.

What I learned from four generations of players

I am sixty-eight years old. I have witnessed four generations of players. They differ in their feet, they are alike in their loneliness.

The first generation I observed when I entered the profession — the players of the 1970s — played with a very different feeling. They played because football was a way to assert status, to escape a fate, to become something larger than themselves. They played with a desire that was sometimes naive, but also very real.

The second generation — the players of the 1990s and 2000s — played in a world already globalised. They had better boots, better nutrition, better flights. But they also faced the pressure of new media — satellite television, newspapers, big headlines.

The third generation — the players of the 2010s — is the generation I observed most, because I lived in Paris during the Neymar and Mbappé season. This was the generation of social media, of images, of Instagram accounts with millions of followers. They played in a world where every touch was analysed, dissected, and judged within seconds.

The fourth generation — the players of the 2020s and 2026 — is the generation Kevin Diks belongs to. This is the generation of players who can be born in one country, raised in another, and play for a third. This is the generation where the concept of "homeland" grows more complex, and the concept of "representation" grows harder to define.

And the common thread among all of them — what I see in every generation — is loneliness. The loneliness of a man in a job everyone sees but few understand. The loneliness of a man who steps onto the pitch under the lights and steps into the dressing room in silence. The loneliness of a man who knows his career will end before his body grows old.

Kevin Diks, though born in the Netherlands, though playing in Germany, will feel this loneliness in his own way. Not the loneliness of a man far from home. But the loneliness of a man between two homes.

Core (continued): Some grounded predictions

I dislike predicting results. But I will make a few predictions about the process — things I believe will happen regardless of the final outcome.

First, Indonesia will start slowly against Singapore. Not because they play badly, but because Singapore will slow the match down. If Indonesian fans understand this, they will not turn on the team after just twenty goalless minutes.

Second, Kevin Diks will not have a statistically standout match. He will have a stand-out match in organisation. He will not score, will not assist, may not make a memorable tackle. But if Indonesia keep a clean sheet, that will be his doing.

Third, the Indonesia-Malaysia match will not decide top spot. If Indonesia and Malaysia both win their other games, the derby will decide only first and second place — an important difference but not a life-or-death one. And in that case, both teams will advance.

Fourth, one of the two new strikers — Mitchell Baker or Luke Vickery — will have a significant moment in this tournament. Not necessarily a goal. Perhaps an assist. Perhaps a pressing move that leads to a goal. Perhaps a moment no one notices at the time but that gets recalled later.

Fifth, and this is the prediction I believe in most: this tournament will be decided by a match no one is talking about now. Perhaps Singapore-Bangladesh. Perhaps Malaysia-Bangladesh. Perhaps a match whose result reshapes the entire group. In regional football, this happens more often than people think.

A view from Paris

I live in Paris. I have lived here for many years. And every time a major tournament approaches, I think back to the 2026-2026 season — the first season of Neymar and Mbappé at PSG.

Paris, that season, taught me that Champions League stumbles begin in August.

No one believed it in August. In August, everything was possible. A new team, a new star, a new hope. Articles wrote about unprecedented attacking combinations. Experts spoke of a new era. And somewhere, in a corner of the training ground, a combination drill was skipped. A small misunderstanding between two players went unresolved. A substitute felt abandoned. These small things accumulated, and by March they became a 1-6 defeat.

That is my lesson from Paris. That is my lesson from football.

And that is why I pay close attention to the small details in Kevin Diks's press conference. The way he spoke of "we" rather than "I." The way he spoke of Singapore before Malaysia. The way he spoke of "mission" rather than "match." The way he spoke of his teammates having responsibility rather than himself.

These details are very small. They have no news value. But they are signals. And in football, small signals are often more important than big events.

In Paris, in the 2026-2026 season, I learned that the winning team is not the team with the best players. The winning team is the team with the best rhythm. And rhythm does not come from beautiful moments. It comes from small habits, repeated, in silence, when no one is watching.

The training ground and what I do not write

The training ground never lies. It only whispers to those who stay behind.

Throughout my career, I have stayed behind a great deal. I have sat in corners of grounds in Belgrade, in Paris, in Kazan, in many other places. I have learned that what the training ground says often differs from what the press writes. The press writes about the goalscorers. The training ground speaks of those who hold the rhythm. The press writes about beautiful moments. The training ground speaks of moments that never happen — moves stopped before they take shape.

I am not in Jakarta this week. I am in Paris, following everything through screens, through articles, through messages from colleagues in the region. But I know one thing: what I read from the press conference in Senayan tells me the Indonesia national team is on the right path.

Not because they have many good players. But because they have a captain who knows how to hold the rhythm.

And rhythm, in football, is the most important thing. Because rhythm is the only thing that cannot be bought with a transfer fee. It must be built. It must be protected. And it must be handed down from generation to generation, like a lamp passed from hand to hand in a dark room.

Final section: What I will be watching

I will watch this tournament with three questions in mind.

First, can Indonesia hold its rhythm against Singapore — a team that will try to make the match slow and uncomfortable? This is the first test and also the most important.

Second, can Kevin Diks become a true captain — not captain because he wears the armband, but captain because his teammates trust him? This is a test that cannot be measured by statistics, and can only be assessed after the tournament ends.

Third, can Indonesia avoid the derby trap — the trap that has robbed so many Southeast Asian teams of their rhythm over decades? This is the test that, in my view, decides everything.

People remember goals. I remember the silences between two beats of the ball.

Kevin Diks, on that Tuesday afternoon in Senayan, said very little. He did not declare they would be champions. He did not speak of the Malaysia rivalry. He promised nothing to the fans. He only said that his team has a mission, a goal, and a match ahead of them: Singapore.

And to me, a man who has followed football for over five decades, that is the most remarkable thing a captain can say.

Because those who understand football know that a tournament is not won by talking about it. It is won by living with it, day by day, session by session, moment of silence by moment of silence.

Keeping the beat, for me, is counting what no one hears.

Kevin Diks is counting. He has not named anyone yet. But he is counting.