"Marselino played so badly. He's not even fit enough even though he's only 19 years old," an Indonesian fan criticized striker Marselino Ferdinan, a young talent with high expectations in coach Shin Tae Yong's squad ahead of the 2023 Asian Cup.
Marselino Ferdinan was criticised after his poor performance led to Indonesia's 1-2 defeat to Libya in a friendly match on the evening of January 5. Indonesia opened the scoring in the 6th minute through Yakob Sayuri. However, Libya found the equaliser just two minutes later when Osama Elsharimi successfully took advantage of a poor clearance by the Indonesian defence.
Marselino (red shirt) was criticized after his poor performance in the match against Libya (Photo: PSSI).
Notably, in the remaining hour of play, Indonesia played well on offense, but Marselino's poor finishing ability caused the "archipelago" team to lose the match.
Marselino Ferdinan is considered an Indonesian football prodigy, having won the Liga 1 Young Player of the Year award in 2021 while playing for Persebaya Surabaya, and was also voted by The Guardian as one of the 60 most promising young talents.
The player born in 2004 officially played for the national team since 2022, has played 10 times and scored 2 goals. He has currently moved to play for KMSK Deinze Club in the Belgian National Championship since February 2023.
But in the match against Libya, in addition to frequently making wrong passes, Marselino also often lost the ball after beautiful passes from his teammates in the penalty area. He also failed to take advantage of the golden opportunity to score in the 60th minute. That was the situation where Yakob Sayuri did everything to have a pass in the penalty area for Marselino, but the striker born in 2004 unfortunately shot the ball over the crossbar.
"Two golden opportunities were missed by Marselino and Justin Hubner. If we had scored, we would have won!", an Indonesian fan expressed his disappointment.
"I don't know where Marselino is on the field. He doesn't dare to hold the ball, whenever he has the ball he passes it to his teammates. And the shot in the 60th minute was too bad, there was no better chance than that," another Indonesian fan criticized.
After losing to Libya, Indonesia will have their next friendly match against Iran in Qatar on January 9 before officially having their opening match against Iraq at the 2023 Asian Cup on January 15.
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