Boaz Solossa

Boaz Solossa
Personal information
Full name	Boaz Theofilius Erwin Solossa
Date of birth	16 March 1986 (age 38)
Place of birth	Sorong, Indonesia
Height	1.72 m (5 ft 7+1⁄2 in)
Position(s)	Forward
Team information
Current team	Persipura Jayapura
Number	86
Youth career
1999–2000	PS Putra Yohan
2000–2001	Perseru Serui
2001–2004	Persipura Jayapura
Senior career*
Years	Team
2005–	Persipura Jayapura
2016	→ Carsae FC (loan)
International career‡
2003	Indonesia U-17
2004	Indonesia U-19
2007–2009	Indonesia U-23
2004–	Indonesia
Medal record
Indonesia
Asean Football Championship
	*Club domestic league appearances and goals, correct as of 13 October 2018; ‡ National team caps and goals, correct as of 12 September 2018

Boaz Theofilius Erwin Solossa^[1] (born 16 March 1986) is an Indonesian professional footballer who currently plays for Liga 1 club Persipura Jayapura and the Indonesia national team. He is known by his high leveled dribbling technique and his shooting accuracy or passing with his left-foot. He is one of the best footballers of all time in Indonesia and inspires many children in Papua to pursue a career as a professional footballer.

In 2011, Boaz received an offer to play at Dutch club VVV-Venlo, but because of family reasons he chose to keep playing in Persipura Jayapura.^[2]

Personal life

Boaz was born in the Solossa family, a well-known family in the province of West Papua. His uncle, Jaap Solossa, was the governor of Papua before he died in 2005. Boaz was born in a footballing family as well, being the youngest of five children. Almost all of them were professionals, including his brother Ortizan and Nehemia. Boaz obtained a Bachelor of Economics at Cenderawasih University in 2013. He also works as Civil servant.

Club career

Junior career

Boaz began his junior career by playing at the amateur club PS Putra Yohan in 1999 to 2000. Then he moved to Perseru Serui from 2000 to 2001.

Boaz was summoned in the Papua PON Team to be competed in the 16th National Sports Week in Indonesia. At that time he was only 17 years old. His talent finally came to Peter Withe, the coach of the Indonesian National Team at the time, and took him to the 2004 Tiger Cup when he was 18 years old.

Persipura Jayapura

Boaz signed his first professional contract with Persipura Jayapura in 2005. Since then, he has emerged as the most influential player at the club and even served as captain of the team after the departure of Eduard Ivakdalam.

Until 10 August, Boaz scored 207 goals from 311 official matches with Persipura and made him the club's all-time top scorer along with various individual awards. In addition, he also brought Persipura to win the top division of Indonesia's professional football league four times in the 2005, 2009, 2011 and 2013 seasons.

He has never strengthened other clubs in Indonesia other than Persipura despite being offered a higher salary from rival clubs. According to him, Persipura was like a second home for him and had become his extended family. But when Indonesia's professional football competition was halted due to FIFA sanctions from 2015 to 2016, he accepted an offer from Borneo FC to play in a non-official tournament because Persipura decided to temporarily disband.

At the beginning of the 2018 season, he returned to playing for Borneo FC only for the 2018 Presidential Cup pre-season tournament.

East Timor

In 2016 Boaz loaned by Persipura for the first time in his career to play for Carsae FC in East Timor after the conditions of Indonesian football at that time were being vacuumed due to FIFA sanctions, joining fellow Indonesians Imanuel Wanggai and Oktovianus Maniani.^[3] However, in April 2016 having only made four appearances Boaz along with Wanggai left the club by mutal consent to rejoin Persipura.^[4]

International career

The first time he appeared was dubbed the "prodigy", when he was brought by Peter Withe and performed a stunning performance in Ho Chi Minh, when he performed with the Indonesian National Team in the 2004 Tiger Cup. Boaz's international debut was against Turkmenistan in 30 March 2004 for the 2006 World Cup qualification where Indonesia won 3–1 and Boaz made two assists for his team mate Ilham Jaya Kesuma. Boaz was considered to be a bright prospect in Indonesian football after performing brilliantly in the 2004 Tiger Cup, where Indonesia was defeated by Singapore in a home and away match, which resulted in an aggregate score of 5–2 to Singapore. In the group phase, Boaz managed to score 4 goals and along with Ilham Jayakesuma, who scored 7 goals, both led the top scorers chart.

He was injured after a tough tackle in a friendly match against Hong Kong,^[5] forcing him to miss the Asian Cup 2007 and disappear from football for many months.

He, who is Christian, was chosen as the captain of the Indonesian national team, the majority of which are Muslim. This indicates that all players can become team leaders regardless of religious or ethnic background.

After another failure for the Indonesian national team to become a champion in the 2016 AFF Championship, Boaz announce his retirement from the national squad to give chance to other young players as well admitting he was "tired to see Indonesia without any trophy in the tournament". He congratulate Thailand for their fifth trophy and acknowledged that "Thai players and their performances are much better and still far from us to reach".^[6] However, Boaz still disclosed his intention to retire, saying he wanted to discuss the matter with his family first while celebrating Christmas in his hometown of Sorong.^[7]^[8]

Controversies

Boaz, at the beginning of his career, was easily provoked by emotion and often made a tantrum. On October 25, 2005 he was sentenced to one year of suspension, not allowed to play football at national and international events by the PSSI because he was proven to kick referee in the Indonesia Cup match between Persipura against Persebaya on 12 September 2005 .

Boaz once acted by rejecting the PSSI's call to defend the Indonesian U-23 National Team. This made the national football authorities angry and threatened to impose severe sanctions. One of them did not allow Boaz and several other players who refused to appear with the Indonesian National Team, to appear on the official PSSI stage. But finally the sentence was not handed down, after Boaz agreed to return, on March 28, 2007 in the U-23 Indonesia National Team match against Lebanon's U-23 National Team, but suffered a 2-1 defeat to the Lebanese U-23 National Team advantage .

Despite the status of a professional soccer player, Boaz is sometimes still difficult to leave his bad habit of consuming alcohol. He even almost returned from the concentration of the Indonesian National Team training in Australia by coach Peter Withe, because he was found drunk. Along with that, his appearance began to fade which made Peter Withe cross it out.

Professional attitude seems to be difficult for him to apply in his daily life. That can be seen with the accident he experienced while chasing a chicken around his residence in Jayapura without wearing footwear. As a result, he stepped on broken glass and had to get a few stitches on his legs, which forced him to miss Persipura's club defense in a few weeks.

But in recent years he has become more responsible and able to be sporty after being given the position of captain of Persipura Jayapura and the Indonesian national team. Besides that he also did not want his bad character to be imitated by his five young daughters. He has a very high religious side as a Christian who is proven by celebrating Jesus Christ on the sky if he scores a goal or his team wins.

Injury

In the midst of his uphill career, he had experienced a serious injury that made him almost forget football for good. A broken right leg injury while appearing to defend the Indonesian National Team against the Hong Kong National Team in the international arena is indeed almost killing his soccer playing career. The match ended with a 3-0 position for the Indonesian National Team.

Many rumors say that the Indonesian national team did not finance Boaz's treatment when a severe injury occurred against Hong Kong. Reportedly the Persipura camp is willing to bear all the costs of operating Boaz. Since then, his commitment to the Indonesian national team began to be questioned.

Career statistics

Club

As of 10 August 2018

Club performance			League		Cup		Other		Continental		Total
Season	Club	League	Apps	Goals	Apps	Goals	Apps	Goals	Apps	Goals	Apps	Goals
2005	Persipura Jayapura	Liga Indonesia Premier Division	16	7	2	2	-		-		18	9
2006			12	10	2	3	-		-		14	13
2007–08			19	13	4	5	-		-		23	18
2008–09		Indonesia Super League	31	28	7	7	-		-		38	35
2009–10			29	17	9	8	1	2	5	0	44	26
2010–11			27	22	-		-		8	5	35	27
2011–12			13	7	-		-		-		13	7
2013			32	25	-		-		-		32	25
2014			20	11	-		-		10	6	30	17
2015			1	1	-		-		-		1	1
2016	Carsae (loan)	Liga Futebol Amadora	4	1	-		-		-		4	1
Total			4	1	-		-		-		4	1
2016	Persipura Jayapura	Indonesia Soccer Championship A	22	11	-		-		-		22	22
2017		Liga 1	27	10	-		-		-		27	10
2018		Liga 1	19	6	-		-		-		19	6
Persipura Jayapura Total			268	168	24	25	1	2	23	11	316	206
Career total			272	169	24	25	1	2	23	11	320	207