The U-17 Indonesian National Team Is Targeted To Qualify For The 2025 U-17 World Cup
JAKARTA The U-17 Indonesian national team is targeted to qualify for the 2025 U-17 World Cup in Qatar after ensuring that they will compete in the 2024 U-17 Asian Cup.
PSSI General Chair Erick Thohir also asked the coaching team to prepare Garuda Muda as much as possible so that later they could compete in the U-17 World Cup.
"The championship is near next year in April in Saudi Arabia," said Erick at the Mercure Hotel, Kemayoran, Jakarta.
Indonesia is one of 16 teams that will play in the 2025 U-17 Asian Cup. This Championship will also qualify for the 2025 U-17 World Cup which will take place in Qatar.
In total, half of the 2025 U-17 Asian Cup contestants will qualify for Qatar. This happened after FIFA as the parent of international football increased the U-17 World Cup participating team to 48 teams.
The increase in the number of participants made the AFC representatives increase from four to eight teams. This means that Indonesia U-17 opportunities to play in the 2025 U-17 World Cup are wide open.
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Erick further reminded that this does not mean that Indonesia U-17 can relax because being the eight best teams that get tickets to the 2025 U-17 World Cup will not be easy.
"That slot to the U-17 World Cup is only eight plus Qatar hosts," said Erick, who also serves as Minister of SOEs in the Red and White Cabinet.
The U-17 Indonesian national team qualified for the 2025 U-17 Asian Cup after a goalless draw against Australia U-17 in the last match of Group G on Sunday, October 27, 2024.
The draw helped Indonesia enter one of the five best runners-up teams to fight in the U-17 Asian Cup which will take place on April 3-20, 2025.
Indonesia U-17 went through three matches in qualifying by securing two wins and one draw. In total, Nova Arianto's squad also secured seven points.
The number of points is actually the same as the Australian collection that qualified as group winners. However, Indonesia had to settle for qualifying as the best runners-up due to losing on goal difference.