Rizky Eka Joins Indonesia: Herdman's 25th Slot and the Bill PSM Makassar Pays

At noon on 22 September 2026, Sulaiman Abdul Karim, the media officer of PSM Makassar, confirmed to VIVA that Rizky Eka Pratama had left the squad and was travelling to Jakarta to join the Indonesia national team. No press conference. No statement from the Football Association of Indonesia. No cut list published. Just a left winger packing a bag and a number that had come full circle: 25.

Four days earlier, John Herdman's squad stood at 23. On 18 September that figure was set. On 20 September, defender Shayne Pattynama of Persija Jakarta was added. On 22 September came Rizky Eka. Three adjustments in four days, spanning two different lines of the pitch, and not a single name crossed out.

The telling detail sits elsewhere: all three moves were made directly by Herdman, yet the person who told the press was a club communications official rather than the federation. That order of disclosure says a great deal about how this machine runs, and about who actually controls the shape of the squad.

Context

Indonesia entered the regional competition cycle with a squad that kept expanding by the day. The 23-man mark was set on 18 September. Pattynama arrived two days later, bringing European playing experience and a full-back profile. Rizky Eka closed the sequence on 22 September in a completely different line: the left attacking flank.

The reference point Indonesian media kept returning to was Singapore. That side also registered 25 players. A domestic outlet voluntarily placing its own national team beside a regional rival before a ball has been kicked is not a harmless detail. It establishes a quiet norm: 25 is normal, 25 is not excessive.

Meanwhile, PSSI stayed silent. No announcement was made about the possibility of players being cut. That silence left a vacuum, and in Southeast Asia a vacuum is always filled with speculation. No injury case was reported, so a squad-crisis hypothesis does not hold. Nor is there any confirmation that the final tournament list will stop at 25 or be trimmed.

Alongside the national team, the Indonesian Super League 2026/2027 season was still running. PSM Makassar lost their first-choice left winger at the very start of the campaign, in a phase where the first points of the season usually set the mood for the whole year.

Core analysis

Calling up Rizky Eka is a positional move, not a systemic one. We know he plays on the left. We do not know what Herdman wants him to do specifically: hold the width or drift inside, join the early counter-press or not, act as the man to break a low block or merely as a rotation option. There is no formation, no advanced metric, no pressing data. They sold you a name and called it tactics.

But one thing can be read from raw data. Rizky Eka started all three of PSM's opening league matches, and in the 3-3 draw he provided one assist. That is two data points, an extremely small sample, yet both point the same way: match fitness is at the best level available. Herdman did not call up a player searching for himself. He called up a player at the peak of his current form.

The second factor is system familiarity. This is not Rizky Eka's first call-up under Herdman. He featured in the AFF Cup 2026 cycle, facing both Vietnam and Singapore. Integration cost is close to zero. A coach preparing for a short tournament always favours someone who already knows the patterns and knows where his teammates will play the ball. This is not a new signing. This is a recycled link.

The third factor, and the one I consider most important: both late additions came from the two biggest clubs in Indonesian football — PSM Makassar and Persija Jakarta. One attacking winger, one defender. Two lines, two flagship clubs, in the same week. The pattern does not resemble firefighting. It resembles a deliberate calculation about the quality floor: take from the top of the pyramid, then add volume to manufacture internal pressure.

And this is the point I want to dissect further — the true price of the 25th slot.

Do not ask what a star is worth; ask what the team looks like without him. PSM Makassar are at the start of a season. They have just let their first-choice left winger leave in the opening month, when every club is still establishing its rhythm. No compensation mechanism has been mentioned. No agreement has been disclosed. The club spent three matches sharpening a player, then handed him to the national team at the exact moment the club needed him most. Prestige flows to the country. Injury risk and dropped points stay with the club.

That is the structural asymmetry of the international calendar, not anyone's personal fault. But in a football economy running on thin margins like Indonesia's, where clubs survive by trading players, losing a starter in the first three rounds hurts far more than it would a European club with rich broadcast revenue. For PSM, Rizky Eka is an asset in its appreciation phase. He is young, he has started for the national team, and he has faced Vietnam and Singapore in a framework the continent watches.

We do not know his market value, his contract terms or his wages. But the age-value curve — a player's price typically rising through the early to mid-twenties — is enough to say that PSM is placing an appreciating asset in someone else's hands with no publicly disclosed insurance policy.

In parallel, the domestic league is being used exactly as any federation would want: as a testing ground. Three league starts are the selection criterion. This is the behaviour of a functioning pyramid system — and it is precisely why clubs feel exposed.

When the whole world trusts the bracket, I trust the data. And the data here says Herdman is building competition, not building a team. Three consecutive additions without a single cut is the signal of a coach who does not yet believe he has a settled left-sided option. He is creating a training ground where every place is insecure.

It should also be said clearly: this is a mild generational-transition signal. A young player is being placed alongside names with far more international mileage, such as Pattynama. There is no data to conclude anything about his tournament minutes, but the approach is clear.

Contrarian angle

And here is where I could be wrong.

First, the competition name does not match. The report calls it the FIFA ASEAN Cup 2026. Another reference in the same file mentions the AFF Cup 2026, which appears to have already been played in the same year. If those are genuinely two different competitions in one cycle, the meaning of a preparation-driven late call-up changes entirely. If they are the same, the report has a naming error. There is no tool at hand to adjudicate, and a serious analyst must flag this rather than paper over it.

Second, the number 25 is undefined. No regulation text states what the final tournament squad size is. If the cap is 23, then 25 is merely a training list, and those two late additions are two men competing for one place, not two confirmed squad members. My reading of an internal race still holds, but its weight is far lighter.

Third, the entire decisive fact — that the player has left the club — rests on a single source, one club communications official. For that event, the source is sufficient. For the federation-side registration status, that source has no authority. I am building an argument on half a confirmed fact and half a blank.

Fourth, I have not a single line of data on Rizky Eka's minutes load or injury history. He started three league matches and joined the national team immediately. For a winger, accumulated fatigue is a silent risk that the naked eye cannot quantify. Across years of watching matches and cross-checking winger heat maps, I learned one thing: when minutes climb fast while rest days shrink, injuries do not come from the collision — they come from the thirty-first sprint of a half.

Takeaway

A championship is never a surprise to those who can read data. But data is not a charm either.

I will place a bet on something verifiable: if PSSI publishes its cut list, Rizky Eka will be among those retained. If he plays in the tournament, that validates a pyramid system working as intended. If he does not play, the 25th slot is simply a penalty imposed on the club that raised him.

Watching PSM Makassar's opening three rounds without him on the left flank will give us the most elegant number in this entire story: the price of a national-team call-up, measured in league points.