Indonesia lost two consecutive games in the play-offs and missed the World Cup. Indonesian media: suffered losses due to Ma Ning’s penalty

In the early morning of October 12, in the second round of Group B of the fourth stage of the World Cup preliminaries in Asia, Indonesia lost 0-1 to Iraq in an away game. After two consecutive losses, Indonesia was at the bottom of the group and was determined to miss the 2026 World Cup.

In the 76th minute of the game, Zidane Iqbal, who came out of Manchester United's youth training, scored the winning goal for the Iraqi team. In terms of the Group B standings, Iraq, which had a bye in the first round, temporarily ranked second after Saudi Arabia due to a disadvantage in goals.

It is worth mentioning that the all-China referee team led by Ma Ning refereed this game. Zhou Fei and Zhang Cheng served as assistant referees, Jin Jingyuan served as the fourth official, and the video assistant referee and assistant video assistant referee were Fu Ming and Du Jianxin. During the game, the referee Ma Ning showed a total of 8 yellow cards and 2 red cards. Among them, Iraqi central defender Tahsin was sent off after two yellow cards and one red card. The Indonesian team received 6 yellow cards. Haye was shown a red card for protesting against the penalty after the game.

After the game, the Indonesian media BOLA wrote an article saying that "the Indonesian national team suffered losses due to the decisions of the Chinese referees." The article pointed out that "the referee Ma Ning from China made several controversial penalties, which had a considerable adverse impact on the Indonesian national team." Indonesian captain Yi Zes also said in an interview after the game: "We tried to respect the referees. Although the penalties they made were not good for us, we still have to respect them."

The Indonesian media focused on the controversy caused by Tahsin's two yellow card fouls. One was the Indonesian team's counterattack opportunity in the 67th minute. Romeni was brought down by Tahsin during the counterattack. Manin showed the latter the first yellow card. During the negotiation process, Indonesian captain Ezes believed that Tahsin destroyed the Indonesian team's obvious scoring opportunity and should be shown a red card. However, Maning pointed out that Romeni had lost the possibility of continuing to control the ball after his final touch.

The second was the controversy caused by the Indonesian team after the set kick was driven into the penalty area in stoppage time. Maning immediately signaled that the offensive team had committed a foul first, and then made a supplementary penalty for Tahsin. Dix was fouled with an elbow and sent off with a second yellow card. The Indonesian media questioned that the yellow card action in the penalty area did not lead to a potentially life-saving penalty kick. However, in fact, before this foul, Indonesian captain Izes was already offside.

In the second round of Group A, the UAE reversed Oman 2-1. The UAE leads with 3 points. Oman, which drew with Qatar in the first round, is at the bottom of the group behind Qatar due to a goal difference disadvantage.