JAKARTA, Jan 16 (Reuters) - New Indonesia head coach John Herdman has called on the country to harness the disappointment of previous failures to fuel qualification for a first World Cup and to challenge for regional and continental titles.
Herdman was officially unveiled as Patrick Kluivert's successor on Monday after the Dutchman parted company with the Indonesians following an unsuccessful attempt to qualify for the 2026 World Cup finals.
Indonesia reached the fourth round of Asia's qualifiers for the first time last year with a squad built largely from players born overseas, and Herdman said that the experience will provide a platform for the team to improve.
"I'm sure the fans want to be at the World Cup in 2026 but you have to suffer, you have to feel it," Herdman said following the draw for the group stages of the ASEAN Championship on Thursday.
"This was a new group of players, Indonesian players trying to come together and connect in a short period of time.
"The talent's there but often that talent takes time to come together, to really feel what you feel. Those defeats are what create the foundation for the future.
"That group of men, we have no excuses now. We've suffered together, the talent's there and we have the opportunity to take this country to the next level."
Herdman's first games in charge will come in March in the FIFA Series, which will be played in Jakarta, before the country attempts to win the ASEAN Championship for the first time in the competition's 30-year history in July and August.
The 50-year-old Englishman, who led Canada to the 2022 World Cup, will then lead Indonesia towards the Asian Cup finals in Saudi Arabia in January 2027 with the nation looking to build on its best run to the last 16 in the previous edition in Qatar.
"That pressure is an absolute privilege for the players, it's a curse as well if we want to view it like that," Herdman said of the expectation placed upon his players by the country’s football-mad population of 280 million people.
"But the mentality we're building is a pioneering mindset. We haven't qualified for the World Cup, we haven't won an Asian Cup, we haven't won an ASEAN Hyundai Cup. We have a chance to do all of those things. That's the mindset. That's the privilege."
(Reporting by Michael Church, Editing by Peter Rutherford)
