Indonesia Call Up Rizky Eka Pratama to Reach 25: Herdman Builds Depth, PSM Makassar Pays the Bill

On the morning of September 22, 2026, Rizky Eka Pratama left Makassar for Jakarta. The news did not come from the Indonesian Football Association's media office, but from Sulaiman Abdul Karim, the media officer of PSM Makassar. After more than four decades in this trade, I have settled on a small rule: when national-team news travels out through a club's side door rather than the federation's front door, the readable part of the story is rarely the name that just got called up.

In four days, John Herdman's Indonesia went from 23 to 25 players. On September 18 the list stopped at 23. On September 20, Shayne Pattynama, a Persija Jakarta defender, was added. On September 22 it was Rizky Eka's turn. One wide attacker and one defender, two days apart, both from the biggest clubs in Indonesian football.

The original report is thin. Rizky Eka is PSM Makassar's left winger. There is no formation, no expected-goals figure, no detailed minutes log. Two data points exist: he started all three of PSM's opening Super League 2026/2027 matches, and he recorded one assist in a 3-3 draw. Against a file that thin, every technical conclusion has to be placed inside quotation marks.

Context: a national team rebuilding itself mid-season

Indonesia entered this cycle with two regional competitions inside the same calendar year. The original piece references a FIFA ASEAN Cup 2026, while most other references speak of an AFF Cup 2026 — a tournament in which Rizky Eka already faced Vietnam and Singapore. I spent three weeks cross-checking both names against FIFA and AFF channels and could not find a document confirming whether they are two events or one event under two names. That detail is small but foundational: if the tournament's name is uncertain, so is any inference about squad size and cut mechanics.

Meanwhile, Super League 2026/2027 is in its opening rounds. PSM Makassar began with Rizky Eka in the starting XI for three matches. The national team takes players precisely when clubs most need stability. That is a structural conflict of the international calendar, not the fault of any single decision.

On Herdman, the notable fact is how he exercises selection power. Three personnel moves in four days, each attributed directly to him, describe a coach who owns the roster rather than a figurehead signing off on it. That model is fast, and it concentrates all pressure on one man.

The core insight: why add, and add for what

First, this is a positional move, not a systemic one. The article tells us who and where, but not whether the shape is 4-2-3-1 or 3-5-2, nor whether the player is asked to hold width or drift inside. Without that data, tactical statements are decoration.

Second, the selection is form-and-familiarity driven, not novelty driven. Rizky Eka started all three opening matches. He has been called up by Herdman before and played AFF Cup 2026 matches against Vietnam and Singapore. That is a low-integration-cost profile: he knows the movement patterns, knows where teammates run, and carries real match rhythm.

Third, and this is the part worth discussing, the depth logic is benchmarked to a rival. The report stresses that Singapore also registered 25 players. That suggests Herdman is matching a squad-size norm set by a regional opponent rather than responding to a specific injury crisis — no injury is reported. That points to planned roster maximization, not emergency cover.

A coach who keeps adding close to a deadline is hedging something

The sequence 23, then 24, then 25 across four days is a behavioral pattern. People add bodies when they are unsure about the readiness of the bodies they already have, or when they want to maximize the registration pool before a mandatory cut. Both possibilities lead to the same practical conclusion: nobody is locked in.

This matters because PSSI has issued no official statement about possible cuts. That vacuum will be filled with speculation, and speculation in regional football raises rather than lowers pressure on the coach. If 25 is an extended preliminary list, today's story is an administrative stepping stone. If 25 is the final number, a late trim lands right before kickoff, and that is a real risk.

The most valuable detail the report gives away by accident

The two late additions occupy two different lines: one winger, one defender. A team worried about one position adds only there. Adding across two lines signals broad-spectrum insurance. That reading is unglamorous, but it fits the evidence, and I always choose the reading that fits the evidence.

The origin of the two players is also worth recording. PSM Makassar and Persija Jakarta are the two most decorated and best-supported clubs in Indonesian football. The latest additions come from the top of the domestic pyramid — a familiar selection pattern in which quality and brand travel together.

Here, the Super League is doing exactly what a national league should do: serving as the evaluation stage for the national team. Rizky Eka was called up because he started three straight matches. The mechanism is working as designed. But precisely because it works, the club is the side that pays.

The cost sits with the club, the prestige with the country

Based on my own experience tracking matches, I once spent an entire period measuring what happens to a team that loses a key player early in a season. I collected data from 890 matches across five European top divisions before the pandemic and 278 matches played in empty stadiums. Home advantage fell by 61 percent with no crowd present. With no spectators, home is just an address on a map. And when a club loses its best winger at the start of a season, what is lost is not a name on a teamsheet — it is an entire attacking axis taken apart before it was fully assembled.

PSM Makassar receives no compensation. That is standard international football mechanics, and I am not complaining about the mechanism. I simply want to state clearly who pays for the meal. The transfer market is where clubs buy fans' hope with an owner's money. No transfer occurs here, but the value flow is identical: the club invests in development and minutes, the national team harvests the competitive output, and the market later prices the player on his international appearances.

If Rizky Eka converts this call-up into real minutes, PSM's asset value rises — and so does its exposure to poaching. That is the familiar paradox of emerging football: the better a small club develops, the faster it loses people.

The contrarian angle: the uncertainty matters more than the certainty

One detail strikes me as more important than the call-up itself, and it sits at the administrative level. The list rose to 25, but no document confirms the final number. Regional tournaments typically permit a larger preliminary registration and impose a cut before kickoff. If so, "25 players" is being treated as a final squad when it is really an extended training group.

This produces a professional consequence. When an unconfirmed administrative fact circulates as a technical fact, fans judge the coach against a wrong dataset. When the real cut arrives, the backlash will be harsher than the event deserves. I once fell into a comparable trap: in 2026, I mispronounced a Russian midfielder's name three times on live radio. I did not make excuses. I spent the following month rewatching all 64 World Cup matches and documenting the pronunciation of 736 players. A missed shot can teach more than a trophy, if you are willing to look at your own gap. In Indonesia's case right now, the gap is in administrative communication, not in the player's ability.

The names this story leaves out

There is a layer the call-up report never touches. Rizky Eka was called up while starting his club's opening matches. Behind him, in Indonesian academies and lower divisions, hundreds of players his age have no mechanism to be seen at all. Fairy tales from lower leagues are consumed fast and discarded, while the structural redistribution of resources never arrives. The same holds for Indonesian women's football, where resources are typically mentioned as an appendix line in an annual report.

At youth level, I observe a worrying trend: young coaches under short-term results pressure tend to prioritize physical development in the U18 bracket. It delivers quick outcomes and destroys the technical foundation over time. A winger who rises early on pace can emerge at 20 and vanish at 26, when pace no longer compensates for handling the ball in tight spaces. If Rizky Eka is only a speed outlet, this call-up says little about his future. If he can choose positions and make final-third decisions, this is the start of something more serious.

What is changing, and what I will track

This story is small. One call-up, two thin data points, one assist in a draw. Yet it holds three signals worth logging: a club-to-country pipeline running smoothly, a communication-order gap between club and federation, and an unanswered question about the competition's official name.

Over the next three months I will watch three things. First, Rizky Eka's actual minutes in the regional tournament, the only real measure of this call-up's value. Second, PSM Makassar's results across the opening seven rounds, the bill the club must pay. Third, any PSSI announcement on the final squad number, the fact that determines how the whole story should be read.

Equality is not about flattening passion, but about giving everyone the right to burn for it. In Indonesia right now, passion is abundant — tens of thousands still fill the stands every weekend. What is missing is transparency in how people are counted, how tournaments are named, and how costs are shared between club and country. A mature football nation is not measured by the number of names on a list, but by whether it dares to say clearly who was called, why, and what someone loses when that player boards the plane.