Endang Witarsa

Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox football biography Endang Witarsa (born Liem Sun-Yu (Template:Zh); 16 October 1916 – 2 April 2008) was an Indonesian former football player and coach.

Career

Witarsa trained as a dentist, but discovered that his passion lay with football. During his youth, Witarsa joined UMS (Union Makes Strength), a Chinese Indonesian football club, in 1948 as a halfback.

In his later years, Witarsa became a goalkeeper, playing as such for the Indonesian national team in the football tournament of the 1956 Summer Olympics, becoming, at the age of 40, the oldest-ever player in the history of the Olympics. Witarsa is sometimes confused with fellow Indonesian footballer Aang Witarsa, who scored three goals for Indonesia in 1957, which led to some news outlets to wrongly claim that Endang was one of the oldest ever international goalscorers, aged 40 years, 7 months, and 21 days.

After retiring in 1957, Witarsa became a coach, taking over the likes of UMS 1905 and Persija Jakarta in the 1950s and 1960s, before taking charge of the Indonesian national team in 1967, a position that he held for nine years, until 1979.

Later life

Witarsa received a Lifetime Achievement Award from Badan Liga Indonesia in October 2006 because of his dedication for nearly 70 years as a player and coach. Witarsa died on 2 April 2008, at Pluit Hospital, Jakarta.