RIEDL APPOINTED AS INDONESIA HEAD COACH

The FA of Indonesia (PSSI) have been in talks with Riedl for several months where following a shortlist of two candidates, new National Team Body (BTN) chief Iman Arief confirmed that Riedl has been selected to coach the Indonesian senior and Under-23 national teams.

“We confirm that Alfred Riedl is the new head coach for the Indonesian national team,” said Iman.

“He will arrive in Jakarta this week, and the training camp will start as soon as he arrives.”

The 60-year-old takes over the team from Benny Dollo and the U23 side from Alberto Bica.

Other than leading Vietnam to a fine performance at the AFC Asian Cup in 2007, the Austrian had also delivered the football bronze medal to Laos at the 2009 SEA Games.

As a player, Riedl has been capped four times for the Austria national football team when he made his debut in April 1975 against Hungary while as a manager, he made his coaching debut for Olympique Khouribga (Morocco in 1993-94).

He then went on to Al-Zamalek (Egypt, 1994-95), Al Salmiya (Kuwait, 2001-03), and many national teams, including Austria (1990-92), Liechtenstein (1997-98), Palestine (2004-05), Vietnam (1998-2001, 2003-04, 2005-2007), and Laos (2009-2010).

At the 2007 AFC Asian Cup, he coached Vietnam to a 2-0 victory over the United Arab Emirates and help the team to get to the quarterfinal for the first time in their history.

Following his exit as the Vietnam national coach in late 2007, Rield returned a year later in October 2008 to coach Vietnam’s Xi Măng Hải Phòng FC club where he stayed for just three matches.

He signed on as the head coach of Laos for the SEA Games in 2009 before his announcement as the new coach for Indonesia this week.

But while PSSI expected him to start immediately with the training camp, Rield priority would be to select his assistants for which there are several.

He had already made it known that he is interested in signing Wolfgang Pikal, the director and head coach of Canggu Club Football Academy in Bali, to be his assistant.

Other than that, other names out for consideration are Danurwindo, Jaya Hartono, Widodo Putra and Aji Santoso.