Schools Start To Literate With Early Childhood Women's Football

JAKARTA Elementary schools are increasingly literate with early-age women's soccer. This can be seen from the increase in participants at the MilkLife Soccer Challenge 'Jakarta Series 2 2024 event.

This series 2 of Jakarta will take place 7-10 November 2024 at the Kingkong Soccer Arena and Atang Sutresna Kopassus, Cijantung, East Jakarta. The number of participants in this series has increased sharply more than three times compared to Series 1.

Assistant Coach for the Head of MilkLife Soccer Challenge, Asep Sunarya, said that Series 1 successfully played an important role in increasing the number of participants.

"Now the second series, enthusiasm is getting higher, the more schools, the more schools that used to not know there is a women's soccer tournament."

"However, now that they know the first series, they are even more prepared," he said.

Participants of the MilkLife Soccer Challenge (Jakarta Series 2 2024 reached 1,359 students from 85 Elementary Schools (SD) in Jakarta and its surroundings. Participants were divided into 31 age groups (KU) 10 and 88 KU-12 teams.

This number is in stark contrast to the implementation of Series 1 which was only attended by 368 students. At that time they were divided into nine KU-10 teams and 25 KU-12 teams.

Director of MilkLife Soccer Challenge, Teddy Tjahjono, said that the increasing participation of participants in the MilkLife Soccer Challenge-Jakarta Series 2 2024 became a breath of fresh air in an effort to develop women's football in Indonesia.

"With so many participants, it will certainly increase the probability of large talents to continue to be developed," said Teddy.

In addition to organizing this event, the MilkLife and the Djarum Foundation have also collaborated with the All-Indonesian Football Association (PSSI) to prepare roadmaps at the age level of 14, 16, 18, and professional.

Teddy emphasized that women's soccer can excel, complete infrastructure development and talent development are needed from an early age.

"With a strong foundation, it will make the women's soccer development process in the next stages better. All of this is a long-term process," he said.

To accommodate the number of participants in Jakarta, the MilkLife Soccer Challenge 'Jakarta Series 2 made adjustments in the 7x7 match category by holding a qualifying round for KU-12 before competing in the group stage which consisted of 64 teams.

Meanwhile, the KU-10 consisting of 31 teams immediately played the group stage. Then, for the Skill Challenge category consisting of drabling, one-on-one, passing control, penalty shoot, and shot-on-target, the knockout system is applied.

Just like the series in seven other cities, potential players in this event will be called up for the MilkLife Extra Training.

They will then be included in the best team that will compete in the MilkLife Soccer Challenge All-Stars KU-12 at the Kudus Supersoccer Arena on January 24-26, 2025.

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