Erol Iba

Who is Erol Iba?

Erol Iba is an Indonesian footballer, he normally plays as a defender or can be a midfielder and his height is 170 cm. Best known for his speed in the left wing, he also notified for his good dribling, passing and aggresitivty. He is playing for the Indonesia national football team. His first International debut in a senior national team squad was on 23 August 2006 at the 2006 Merdeka Tournament. There he played for Indonesia against Malaysia, where the teams tied 1-1. At Asian Cup 2007 he just played one time as a substitution player when Indonesia lost 0-1 to South Korea at last game in group D.

Starting his football career in Papua Training and Education Center. Erol moved to Ragunan Training and Education Center in 1997. There he spent one year, before joining with football club from North Sumatera which played in Indonesian League, Semen Padang, in 1998. In this club, for which he spent four years, Erol was remarked as one of the most talented Indonesian wing back. The young star took his club as top ten club in the competition in 2000, and in 2001 he took Semen Padang to the semifinal phase of Indonesian league. His abilities soon attracted many clubs to sign him. In 2002, he signed one-year contract with PSPS Pekanbaru, a club that was forming a dream team by signing many Indonesian’s famous players such as Kurniawan Dwi Yulianto and Bima Sakti.

However he failed to repeat his good performance in Semen Padang as well as the club failed to be the top flight in the league.

Despite his poor performance, Erol was signed by Benny Dollo, currently the coach of Indonesian football team, who was at that time, the coach of Arema Malang, in which Erol spent three years from 2003–2006.