Dream of a Pundit

Yes, It is the dream. This is my blog so I'll just give out my views on it.

Fig 1. ex-Portsmouth player & Sky Sports Pundit legend Chris Kamara

I sometimes envy these pundits in my country (mind you, I live in Indonesia) and these pundits aren't even that competent. The fact that they don't get most of their facts right is one thing yet they get lots of exposure on TV blabbing about on our television screens with nonsense about someone who just passed the ball. Heck, these pundits in my country aren't even ex-footballers.

Fig 2. ESPN Star pundit & Kop Legend Steve McMahon

Look at ESPN-StarSports Asia's football pundits. Steve McMahon was a Liverpool legend, Paul Parker was Manchester United's first choice rightback before the emergence of Gary Neville, PJ Roberts played professionally in the A-league and S-league, even Shebby Singh was an experienced defender back in the Malaysian League. What these pundits have are topclass experience of being a professional. These respected athletes will get the facts right because they know their game and actually have brilliant ways to express their minds for viewers to hear.

Now back to Indonesia. This nation may not be a footballing nation, but the sport is pretty huge despite not having any success. The media here is like the British, they build up their national athletes highly, overrate them of being class beaters, and once they fall they will slate and insult the living shit out of these national athletes. The difference is, British athletes skills are proven and gets beaten by better ranked athletes (Scot Andy Murray losing to Serb #1 in the world Novak Djokovic is one example), while Indonesian athletes just aren't that good.

Thats just the media. But the pundits are incredibly outrageous. They are too optimistic it's insane. So every single time Indonesia looses a football match against a better team in Asia (Japan, Bahrain, Iran, Korea et al.) the Indonesian footballing pundits will always try to back the Indonesian team and say the only reason we lost is because of "weaker physical nature". This cliche gets overused so badly it gets caught up into other sports Indonesia are good at such as Badminton. Shit they say such as "they don't have the posture..." or "we warn off to early.." and even "they are more experienced..." are said to much, I could even create a YouTube video called "Shit Indonesian footballing pundits Say" and get a few hundred hits off it. Why can't these pundits admit that we aren't good enough? Lionel Messi is relatively short and he's the best player in the world. Consider half of Barcelona's players are pretty small, physical nature isn't a reason anymore. It's good to be optimistic, but it's better to be realistic and objective. 

I don't know if Indonesia's TV stations has problems trying to recruit a pundit for football matches, but try to recruit someone from the game. The only pundit/commentator Indonesia has that is from the game that I know of is Indonesian ex-international Danurwindo and even he is part time. And when he does appear of the TV, his remarks are somewhat indecisive and comical, but you cant argue he gets his facts correct. Because I'm pretty sure commentators in England does lots of unintended comical commentaries, Just look at how @MirrorFootball likes to make fun of former Chelsea coach Ray Wilkins for his style of commentary.

But if you don't need to have a professional background to be a footballing pundit, at least hire better people. At this rate of hired pundits even I could get a job here. There is a huge number of Indonesian legit footballing writers I follow on Twitter who actually knows a lot of the game makes me amazed how they aren't the pundits on TV. Pangeran Siahaan, Andi Bachtiar Yusuf, Zen RS is just to name a few. These people sadly has other jobs on their hands, and probably are too good to be pundits in this country. But TV channels should set a standard for hiring commentators and in my personal view, quality of the names that I mentioned above is the bar that needs to be reached.

At the end of the day, I would love to be a pundit in this country. There will be a better chance for Mark Hughes being the Queen of England than me being a professional footballer. It doesn't matter how my knowledge (or lack of) about the game is like, but talking nonsense about the game you love and get paid for it with good money and the added TV exposure is definitely a good trade for any job. But I'll be sure to read up my facts first and try not to create racist/sexist remarks.