The Strengthening Of The Women's Football Ecosystem At The Early Age Level

The holding of the MilkLife Soccer Challenge Series 2 2024 (doc. MilkLife Public Relations) event.

JAKARTA The holding of the MilkLife Soccer Challenge Series 2 2024 event successfully showed the strengthening of the Indonesian women's soccer ecosystem at an early age level.

The indicator can be seen in the quantity of participation of contestants in the tournament initiated by the MilkLife and the Djarum Foundation Sports Service. This year, participants reached 1,564 students from 68 Ibtidaiyah madrasah (MI) and elementary schools (SD) in Bandung City and its surroundings.

This number has increased significantly by almost three times compared to the holding of the MilkLife Soccer Challenge Series 1 2024 in June.

At that time the number of participants was 538 students from 22 MI and SD. This increase was almost simultaneous in the cities holding the second series of the MilkLife Soccer Challenge.

Djarum Foundation's Director of Sports, Yoppy Rosimin, said that this positive graph could not be separated from the effort to install early childhood women's soccer which began in 2023 with a tiered and sustainable competition program.

"The holding of a tournament that results in a jump in increasing quantity and significant player quality is very proud," Yoppy said in a statement received.

MilkLife Soccer Challenge is expected to be one of the locomotives of the growth of various women's soccer tournaments in order to capture the potential of the best players to build the golden era of Indonesian women's soccer.

The turnaround of this competition is complete with a talent scouting team tasked with assessing the potential of each participant. Students caught in the radar of the talent search team will have the opportunity to take part in the MilkLife Soccer Extra Training.

It was a special training program with a target of increasing the basic skills of playing football.

They will be directed by the Chief Coach of MilkLife Soccer Challenge, Timo Scheunemann, who has had a UEFA A coaching license in Germany since 2007.

The participants who have undergone the training will later form a team to compete in the MilkLife Challenge All-Stars KU-12 event at the SuperSoccer Arena Kudus in early 2025.

"This program is very important because potential and talented students must always be honed and trained by dedicated coaches so that they can be well directed," said Timo.

The final match of the MilkLife Soccer Challenge Series 2 2024 will be completed on Sunday, October 13, 2024, at the Siliwangi Stadium, Bandung, West Java.

In the age group (KU) 12, SDN 073 Pajagalan who successfully came out as the tournament champion in their debut appearance after conquering SDN 129 Rancasawo Margasari with a final score of 4-1.

Meanwhile, in KU-10, the title was brought home by SDN 075 Jatayu A. This team managed to climb the highest podium after a narrow 2-1 win over their opponent SDN 013 Pasirkaliki.