Kurniawan Dwi Yulianto

Kurniawan became a household name in Indonesia when he went on a scoring spree for the Indonesian youth team that went to Italy in 1993 to train at Serie A club U.C. Sampdoria and play in the Campionato Nazionale Primavera, the league for youth teams of Serie A and Serie B clubs. The Indonesian football association PSSI sent the team abroad for two years to prepare for the 1994 AFC Youth Championship in Jakarta and the qualifying round for the 1996 Summer Olympics. Kurniawan was so prolific that Sampdoria's coach at that time, Sven-Göran Eriksson, included the 18-year old in the team that toured Asia in 1994, along with superstars Roberto Mancini and Attilio Lombardo who just won the 1993-94 Copa Italia title.[2][3]

Kurniawan's performance in the Primavera league and with Sampdoria in exhibition matches caught the attention of other European clubs, including Swiss top-tier club FC Luzern that signed him on loan for the 1994–95 season. Kurniawan scored three goals in his 12 appearances for the Lucerne-based club, a respectable result for any teenager with no previous professional career. Kurniawan is the first and only Indonesian national who has scored in a top-flight European league. He was also the only Indonesian who competed and scored in the UEFA Intertoto Cup, which was abolished in 2008. Despite such achievements, young Kurniawan suffered homesickness, culture shock, and injuries in Switzerland.[4][5]

Sampdoria in 1995 called him back from the loan spell to prepare him for the 1995–96 season of Serie A but Kurniawan chose to return to Indonesia.[6]

Kurniawan played for 12 teams in Indonesia after his 1995 return, winning the national title with PSM Makassar in 2000 and Persebaya Surabaya in 2004. He scored more than 170 goals for those teams combined. That said, his re-entry to Indonesia was not smooth as defenders brutally targeted the popular striker and the media hounded him as a celebrity. The rough transition during his early 20s led him to intentions of quitting football and a drug scandal that made PSSI suspended him from the national team. Criticism was rife against Kurniawan for his inability to match the quality he showed in Europe. He overcame the challenges and became more stable when he joined PSM in 1999 and won his first team trophy in 2000. He came second on the top scorer list that year below his perennial rival Bambang Pamungkas.[7][8][9]

Despite his popularity coming from his achievements in Europe and Indonesia, he was most prolific when he played in Malaysia for Sarawak FA in 2005–06 with 29 goals in 31 appearances. When he joined, Sarawak was playing in the Malaysian Premier League, the second-tier of Malaysian football. His goals helped the club to win promotion and compete in the 2006 Malaysian Super League.[10]

Outside his dark years in the late 1990s, Kurniawan has always been the top choice for the youth and senior Indonesian national football teams from 1993 to 2005. With 33 goals in 59 appearances for the senior team, he has collected more caps and goals than any other Indonesian, except Bambang Pamungkas who also played in Malaysia when Kurniawan was there. His first three goals were scored against Cambodia in a 10–0 rout in the 1995 Southeast Asian Games in Thailand.[11]

Newly promoted Malaysia Super League club Sabah FC became the first club that hired Kurniawan as a head coach in December 2019. The decision followed the inability of the previous coach Jelius Ating to lead a top-tier team due to his lack of AFC Pro coaching license, which Kurniawan holds.[13][14]

Kurniawan's first season at Sabah reaped mixed reviews from club decision-makers with some applauding the first-time head coach for keeping the team out of relegation while some criticizing him for only winning two out of 11 matches played in the shortened 2020 Malaysia Super League season amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The latter group managed to push Kurniawan out in November 2020. However, a change of management leadership at the club led to a January 2021 rehiring of Kurniawan who was about to join Malaysia Premier League club Kuching City F.C. as an assistant coach.[15] On 28 August 2021, Sabah lost 4–0 against UiTM FC. Next days, Sabah announced that they had sacked Kurniawan.[16]