Nova Arianto Affirms Indonesia U-17 Is Not Afraid To Face Zambia In The First Match Of The 2025 U-17 World Cup

JAKARTA - The U-17 Indonesian national team will undergo the inaugural match of the 2025 U-17 World Cup against Zambia U-17. Ahead of the match, Nova Arianto as the coach highlighted a number of things, including the matter of the player's posture.

Nova admits that his fostered player posture is not as good as other participants in the 2025 U-17 World Cup. However, he stressed that his players have a strong mentality to be winners.

"Mental mental is a record for me. Body must be different. When we meet Ivory U-17 Beach and Panama U-17 (trial), in a posture we are very defeated."

"However, I told players to have a strong mentality so they can compete. If they don't have a strong mentality, it will definitely be difficult to compete with Zambia, Brazil, and Honduras."

"My hope is that players should never be afraid because we don't know about the results. The important thing is to try their best first," Nova Arianto said at a press conference before the match, Sunday, November 2, 2025.

Ahead of the 2025 U-17 World Cup, the player's mental and psychological are the aspects most noticed by the 45-year-old coach. Given such a young age, emotional management is also a very important concern.

One aspect that is considered is the matter of social media. Nova also decided to limit the use of social media against players during the 2025 U-17 World Cup.

"I'm happy with the discipline of players in social media. I can see they don't upload anything so they don't get their concentration disturbed and focus on the 2025 U-17 World Cup."

"We also have a team of psychologists who manage the mental aspects of players before appearing in the 2025 U-17 World Cup. Tactics will not be able to run without a good player mentality," Nova said.

Indonesia U-17 will start the struggle at the 2025 U-17 World Cup against Zambia in the Group H preliminary round at Field 7 Aspire Zone, Doha, Qatar, Tuesday, November 4, 2025, at 22.45 WIB.

After that, Fadly Alfredo and his friends will face Brazil on Friday, November 7, 2025, at 22:45 WIB. Finally, the trip in the group phase will be closed by the party against Honduras on Monday, November 10 at 21:45 WIB in the same location.