Dibuat oleh Admin. Pada 26 June 2025 - 10:04
Satria Muda Pertamina (SMP) will again face a tough challenge in the playoffs after securing fourth place in the final standings of this season's IBL. Having played 26 matches, Widy et al have a record of 19 wins and 7 losses. This result means they will again face tough opponents Prawira Bandung.
Although they have always won in two regular round matches, SMP should still be vigilant. The reason is that Prawira is still a good team with a myriad of talented players and has many loyal supporters when playing at their home ground.
"This will be a very interesting game and will definitely have high intensity. They have an offense that is nice to watch, and so do we, so in my opinion the team that will win is clearly the team that has a neater defense. And I think we are capable of that," said Satria Muda head coach Youbel Sondakh.
The man who has experienced being a champion as a player and coach at SMP also said that their local players must be ready with all forms of their playing patterns in the playoffs later. This of course refers to the fact that in the last three SMP matches, they played with three new foreign players, namely Amine Noua, Shannon Evans and Artem Pustovyi. Of the three names above, only Artem is familiar with the SMP players because last season the Ukrainian national team player was already part of the team based in Kelapa Gading.
"This will certainly be an interesting challenge for our local players. They are now playing with three foreign players with qualified standards, so how can they execute every pattern we give. In addition, in the last few matches, our system may not have worked too well because Artem, Amine and Shannon were still adapting, but I am sure and ensure that our squad will be ready to fight in the playoffs later," he continued.
The same thing was also conveyed by Shannon Evans, the Guinea national team player said that in the last few matches he was still in the stage of finding and learning the rhythm of playing with SMP.
"But I feel that my and the team's adaptation process is getting better. They really help me both on and off the field. There are indeed small details that we still have to continue to improve in our defensive and attacking patterns, such as rebounds and transitions, but I am sure we can overcome them next week and will be very ready for a round as important as the playoffs," he said.
"In addition, of course I also hope that we get full support from the SM Fanatics. Because their support really means a lot to us on the field and hopefully Britama Arena will always be full when we compete later," he concluded.
Satria Muda Pertamina itself will first visit Bandung today and will return to host Prawira on June 28-29.
