Ever wonder why the personal ads in the classified sections of magazines and newspapers feature so many advertisements offering cures for (excuse the language) premature ejaculation (PE)?
Herbal medicines, modern pills, acupuncturists and traditional medicinemen: You name it, and they are there, offering not only cure to your very personal and embarrassing problem, but even promising to make you more of a man in bed.
Wonder no more, for the riddle is solved.
Individually, we men may claim to be doing fine, but as a nation we clearly suffer from an acute case of PE. The short-lived euphoria over the national soccer team’s recent performance provided the perfect test sample. What made it worse was that no one saw it coming.
Our national team valiantly tried, but failed, to win the AFF Suzuki Cup. Indonesia won the second leg of the final match on Wednesday at the Gelora Bung Karno Stadium, beating Malaysia 2-1, but it was not enough to clinch the title. This was the fourth time that Indonesia lost the ever-elusive cup in the final, but it was the first time that the biennial tournament has aroused so much excitement nationwide.
That is exactly the problem. The soccer-induced patriotism went away as quickly as it came. Our national team climaxed before it even reached the final.
After winning the two opening matches - 5-1 against Malaysia and 6-0 against Laos — the nation erupted into a massive euphoria that quickly built into a climax. From then on, its performance went downhill. We were lucky to beat Thailand 2-1 to clinch a semifinal berth, and went on to beat the Philippines 1-0 in both legs of the semis. We just never saw a repeat of the earlier stellar performances that were goals galore.
When we learned that we were meeting Malaysia again in the final, many people still mistakenly assumed that it would be a walkover. Instead, Indonesia looked like a spent force in losing the first leg in Kuala Lumpur 0-3. Winning the title in the second leg at that point was mission impossible.
Head coach Alfred Riedl was one of the few people who saw it coming. As he tried to impose strict discipline on his charges, the Austrian coach was virtually ignored as the nation went into a mass frenzy after the two opening matches. His efforts to shield the players from the media and overexposure simply failed.
Everyone who was anyone wanted to be associated with the winning team. Government officials, from President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono down to Cabinet members and politicians of all ideologies, showbiz celebrities and religious leaders — not to mention the media — all clamored be a part of the winning — but not yet championship — team.
Cristian Gonzales and Irfan Bachdim, two names most Indonesians had never heard before the tournament, became instant celebrities. Before this, most Indonesians would have struggled to name a single player on their national team, although they could recite the entire rosters of England’s national team, Manchester United or Barcelona.
The praise and attention lavished upon Gonzales, Irfan and the rest of the players, including the endless interviews and photo ops, would have been appropriate had they just won the cup. But the nation decided to give the treatment befitting only of champions prematurely. This inevitably distracted the team’s focus and preparations, and their performances suffered.
The problem with Indonesia climaxing too quickly was that there was no counterpart to say “slow down”, like wives or girlfriends so often do. Instead we were too busy pleasing ourselves that, if anyone had even tried to tell us to take it easy, we would have ignored it.
Now that Indonesia has lost the final, the euphoria is dead and gone almost without a trace. Most of us will go back to watching the English Premier League and Spanish La Liga. A golden opportunity to revive the national soccer program, induced by the strong public interest evident during the AFF tournament, has been once again squandered, and we are all to blame.
The national soccer program will go back to the same sorry state as before, but we will never be short of excuses, analyses and commentaries about what is wrong.
How do we fix it? Check those personal ads again. Who knows, there may just be the right cure for national PE.
- Eric Musa Piliang
Source: The Jakarta Post