The Number Of Early Childhood Women's Football Participants Continues To Skyrocket

JAKARTA The number of participants from the early childhood women's soccer event, MilkLife Soccer Challenge 2024, continues to skyrocket. The number of contestants even tripled in the second series of Yogyakarta.

MilkLife Soccer Challenge-Yogyakarta Series 2 2024 at Tridadi Stadium, Sleman, ended on Sunday, October 27, 2024. The total participants participating in this series were 1,203 students from MI and SD.

Djarum Founfation's Director of Sports, Yoppi Rosimin, said that the surge in the number of tournament participants in this age group allowed the emergence of new potentials.

"Making us even more optimistic that women's soccer will have a bright future. The existence of a quantity and quality spike from the participants is a positive answer," said Yoppy.

MilkLife Soccer Challenge has so far run 14 times in eight cities throughout 2024. Of the total, this event has succeeded in sparking people's love for women's soccer.

Yoppy hopes that his high participation in Yogyakarta can maintain the positive momentum of the development of regional women's football, which at the adult level has successfully passed the qualifying round and competed in the National Sports Week (PON) for the first time.

"The senior Yogyakarta women's soccer team succeeded in providing inspiration after successfully making a new history at the PON held in Aceh-North Sumatra this year," he said.

At the Yogyakarta Series 2 2024 MilkLife Soccer Challenge, MIS Al Islamiyah Grojogan successfully came out as the champion in the age group (KU) 12 after beating the first series champion team at SDN 2 Wonoharjo through a penalty shootout drama.

Meanwhile, SD Muhammadiyah Sapen came out as a champion from the KU-10 category. This team successfully brought home the title after defeating SD Muhammadiyah Sokoandi 2 with two goals without reply.

During the second series in Yogyakarta, Sari Rahmawati and Shima Putri Larasati were two of the names pocketed by the talent team. These names will later take part in the MilkLife Extra Training program.

A total of 28 participants from the first and second series of Yogyakarta will participate in the program under the direction of the Head Coach of Timo Scheunemann.

Timo is a coach who has had an UEFA A coaching license in Germany since 2007.

"In the first series, it was quite difficult for us to find quality daughters because the participation was not much."

"However, in this second series, the number of quality students jumped because their participation was also more massive," said Timo.

After undergoing the MilkLife Extra Training, the participants will form the best team that will compete in the MilkLife Soccer Challenge All-Stars KU-12 at the Kudus Arena Supersoccer in early 2025.

They will meet with other teams from the cities of the MilkLife Soccer Challenge such as Kudus, Jakarta, Tangerang, Bandung, Semarang, Solo, and Surabaya.