Indonesia and the 'curse' of nearly four decades of failure at Bung Karno

TPO - Bung Karno Stadium is considered by Indonesian fans to be a proud stadium, a “sacred land” of football in the archipelago. But the sad reality is that whenever they play in the finals on this stadium, Indonesian representatives always fail.

After losing to U23 Vietnam in the final of the 2025 Southeast Asian U23 Championship, Indonesia has extended its losing streak in the final at Bung Karno to… 38 years. This statistic is really hard to accept for the football of the archipelago country, but it is the truth. Since the final of the men's football event at the 1987 SEA Games, Indonesia has never won the championship when playing the final match at this stadium with a capacity of nearly 90,000 spectators.

At the national team level, Indonesia has finished second in the AFF Cup 6 times, and the Bung Karno “curse” has appeared in many of these. In 2002, the Indonesian team lost on penalties to Thailand at Bung Karno. Two years later, they also used this stadium as a fulcrum, but Indonesia lost to Singapore and had to accept second place.

2010 was the rare time Indonesia won at Bung Karno. But unfortunately, before defeating Malaysia 2-1, they lost 0-3 away. The rare victory at Bung Karno was not enough to help the archipelago nation win the championship.

Bung Karno only helped U23 Indonesia come back to defeat Thailand in the semi-finals.

At the youth level, Indonesia has won many times. In the U19 tournament, they have won both times recently (2013 and 2024). But ironically, both times, they did not hold the tournament in Bung Karno but brought it to less famous locations such as Bung Tomo or Gelora Delta. Similarly, in the U16 tournament, Indonesia won the last two times both times on local stadiums, not their biggest stadium.

This year, Indonesia brought the U23 tournament to Bung Karno Stadium as a move to show their determination to win the championship. They wanted to turn this place into a “fire pit”, creating enormous pressure for their opponents. Unfortunately, in the end, Bung Karno became the curse that prevented Indonesia from reaching the pinnacle of glory.

Watch the full 2025 Southeast Asian U23 Football Championship Mandiri Cup™ on FPT Play, visit http://fptplay.vn

Source: https://tienphong.vn/indonesia-va-loi-nguyen-gan-4-thap-ky-that-bai-tai-bung-karno-post1764767.tpo