Nova Arianto Says The U-17 Indonesian National Team Still Has Lacks

The U-17 Indonesian national team is undergoing TC to prepare for the 2025 U-17 Asian Cup Qualification (doc. PSSI).

JAKARTA - The U-17 Indonesian national team coach, Nova Arianto, is currently leading the team's training camp (TC) in Bali. Lasting since August 12, 2024, the coach revealed that there are still shortcomings that his team has.

At this TC, Nova brought 35 players. Some of them are new names, the rest are Indonesian U-16 players when they appeared in the 2024 AFF U-16 Cup some time ago.

Given this condition, Nova admits that the shortcomings of her foster children are about different physical conditions. Therefore, the coach emphasized that he would slowly fix this.

"Finally, we are now entering general preparations for the 2025 U-17 Asian Cup Qualification in October 2024."

"So, we started TC in Bali with my focus on physically equalizing the players. You see, there are some new players."

"The old players are also like that because maybe the club has different training intensity," Nova said as quoted from the PSSI website on Friday, August 16, 2024.

Despite acknowledging a shortage of differences in physical condition, Nova, who is also Shin Tae-yong's assistant coach, admitted that the difference was not too significant.

"I am grateful that in conditions, the old players are still in quite good condition. However, there is still a distance between old players and new players," he said.

"Hopefully new players can work harder so that VO2 Max or physically can be the same later," said the coach.

Despite those shortcomings, the U-17 Indonesian national team remains focused on building strength to perform optimally in the 2025 U-17 Asian Cup Qualifiers.

The qualifying match for Group G will take place in Kuwait on 19-27 October 2024. Indonesia U-17 will face together with Australia, Kuwait, and the North Mariana Islands.