Mali U-17 Wants To Bring Proudness As The Only African Representative Left

JAKARTA - The African Confederation (CAF) teams are the most successful contestants in winning the FIFA U-17 World Cup history. Seven trophies have been brought to the African continent.

Mali U-17 memang tak bisa menempuh ke partai puncak untuk perjuangan gelar Dunia U-17 2023 dan menambah koleksi kesuksesan tim-tim CAF.

However, they want to achieve maximum results in their final match in the third place.

"Of course our spirit is for the final. But God has decided and we are still happy to be playing in third place."

"It's very important for us to win it and go home with medals. Because that's our original goal, to get a medal."

"Even though initially (the target) to win or rank second, being in third place will still be fun," said Mali U-17 coach Soumaila Coulibaly.

Coulibaly further realized that Argentina's U-17, which acts as an opponent, is more favorite. However, that condition did not make them feel inferior.

In fact, the unseeded status made Les Aigles' troops even more furious to prove it.

"The opponent facing is one of the other big teams in the world, Argentina U-17. Our players will certainly be very motivated."

"I think Argentina U-17 came as a favorite. They have a great young team and played well in this tournament. However, we also played well in this tournament. Mali U-17 can always survive in various tournaments," said Coulibaly.

Mali U-17's target to achieve the best results as the only African representative remaining is fixed. The third place in FIFA U-17 World Cup 2023 is like a fixed price.

Moreover, the atmosphere of the FIFA U-17 World Cup 2023 in Indonesia is increasingly convincing that they will win third place.

"We have a small final match against Argentina U-17. We want to win this match."

"We know that from the first to the last match, Indonesian audiences have supported us very much. Even after we suffered defeat, they stood up to applaud our performance," said Coulibaly.

"I, of course, am very happy with what happened. We know that Indonesian viewers will support us to score many goals or not, they always encourage us to play well. Thank you very much," said Coulibaly again.

"We still have one more game. So we hope that Indonesian audiences will continue to support us. Once again we are grateful," he said.

The best position of Les Aigles in the FIFA U-17 World Cup was runner-up in the 2015 edition.

Mali U-17 has once been in the third-placed stage before. However, they only ranked fourth in the 2017 edition.

Now, they have ambitions to get the best and don't want to repeat similar results.

The Mali U-17 vs Argentina U-17 match will be held at the Manahan Stadium, Solo, on Friday, December 1, 2023, at 19.00 WIB.