Departing For Thailand, The West Java And Central Java Teams Were Indonesian Representatives At Unified Football In Bangkok

The Special Olympic Indonesia (red) team. (Photo: Special Olympic Indonesia)

JAKARTA - The West Java (Jabar) men's soccer team and the women's team of Central Java (Central Java) represented Indonesia in "The 9th Special Olympics Southeast Asia Unified Football Tournament" 2022 in Bangkok, 12-16 November. The Indonesian contingent is scheduled to depart from Soekarno Airport, Saturday, November 12 morning.

To face the Southeast Asian level soccer tournament, the Indonesian football team has made preparations for several months. The training camp was carried out separately. The TC women's team was held in Surakarta and the men's team in Bandung.

The men's team underwent a training camp at Ladoya Field and GOR Bima Footsal, Cisempur, Bandung under the direction of coach Sandi Pratiwi and assistant Adis Anissa Suma. Meanwhile, the women's team trained at Gamawan Field, Colomadu, Solo City under the guidance of coach Yuli Kristiawan and assistant coach Rasyifa Silvera Arazzaq.

Quoted from the press release of the Special Olympics Indonesia (SOIna), the athletes were between the ages of 14-20 years in accordance with the rules of the Special Olympics. Each team consists of 8 people, namely 5 intellectually disabled athletes and 3 accompanying athletes and 2 coaches.

In the Unified Football in Bangkok, in the early stages each participating team had to enter the match in a round robin system, starting November 13 and continuing the final round.

Unified football is one of the unified sports branches promoted by Special Olympics International. The goal is to show the world that the strength of sports is a pillar for the plural community.

Unified sport unites and strengthens humans with diversity of strength and background, especially intellectually disabled athletes with non-disabled abilities.

Special Olympics athletes with intellectual disabilities and athletes with different backgrounds form a team together and compete.

Here intellectual disabilities can form a team together accompanied by non-disabled athletes or athletes with other disabilities. That's where teamwork was formed to have the strength to compete.

The Indonesian team will compete to follow the competition rules which are derivatives of the above principles. Each team consists of 8 members, namely 5 people playing and 3 people being reserve. The number of intellectually disabled athletes must be the same or even more than companions. Thus in the team that plays the number of companions cannot be more than 2 people.