Jakarta Casual

Persib's journey to Sentani for their away game is the stuff of adventure. They played Persiram in Sorong the other day while the second game of the Papuan stopover is away to Persidafon in Jayapura.

Now Sorong and Jayapura are on the same island. You would imagine getting between the two would be just a cruise down the motorway eastwards. Except of course there is no motorway. I don't think there is even a functioning road linking the two centres.

There will be boats but a daily service is most unlikely.

So Persib were forced to fly back to Makassar, a couple of hours or so westwards, before connecting to another flight to take them back east, to Biak, and then on to Sentani where they arrived less than an hour ago for the game on Monday. All in all a 17 hour trip!

Then they gotta fly home!

Criss crossing timezones and backtracking are a reality of Indonesian football meaning professional footballers cooped up on cramped flights or hanging round poorly equipped terminals in far flung parts of the country.

When the Indonesia Premier League kicks off watch out for teams like PSLS and Persiraja facing even longer trips when they play away to Perseman!