Nova Arianto Reluctant To Burden Indonesian U-17 National Team Players In The 2025 Independence Cup

JAKARTA - The U-17 Indonesian national team coach, Nova Arianto, will escort the team to appear in the 2025 Independence Cup. In the first match, they will face Tajikistan U-17.

The meeting will take place at the Main Stadium of North Sumatra, Medan, on Tuesday, August 12, 2025, at 19.30 WIB.

This agenda is the team's warm-up towards the 2025 U-17 World Cup. However, Nova was reluctant to target the team to become champions.

He emphasized that the main target is that players can develop and gain international experience.

"Personally, I don't give players any targets. I want them to thrive and gain extraordinary experience because the level of opponents is very different from AFF or the Asian Cup."

"Mali U-17 was the runner-up for the previous U-17 World Cup, Uzbekistan U-17, the Asian Cup champion, and Tajikistan U-17 qualified for the round of 16. This will really help us," Nova said in Medan, quoted from Antara, Tuesday, August 12, 2025.

Besides Tajikistan U-17, the U-17 Indonesian national team's opponents in the 2025 Independence Cup are Mali U-17 and Uzbekistan U-17.

While at the 2025 U-17 World Cup, Indonesia is in the same group as Brazil U-17, Zambia U-17, and Honduras U-17.