PAPUA – Papua Football Academy (PFA) started 2024 by returning to national level tournaments and debuting on an international scale. The competitions are the Bangga Merah Putih (Barati) Cup 2024 youth competition in Gianyar, Bali and the Selangor Open 2024 by National Football Development Program (NFDP) Series in Malaysia on March 2-5. PFA’s participation in the Barati tournament is the only representative from Papua, as well as in the NFDP, PFA is the sole representative of Indonesia.
The Selangor Open 2024 organized by JSA Sports Academy and supported by the National Football Development Programme (NFDP) and Majlis Sukan Negara Malaysia is a program initiated by to improve the quality of football for early age in Malaysia.
With the support of PT Freeport Indonesia, PFA competes on March 4 – 5 in the U-15 (under 15 years old) category. While in Malaysia, the 27 students will be accompanied by Ardiles Rumbiak (Head Coach), Melky Papare (Assistant Coach), and Irsadul Anam (Goalkeeping Coach) and five other officials.
“Firstly, we are grateful to have the opportunity to represent Indonesia in the Selangor Open 2024 tournament in Malaysia. For us, this is a valuable moment for the students to improve their level of play as they meet foreign teams,” said Ardiles Rumbiak.
“Of course talking about competition abroad is not only testing their physical, technical and tactical skills against opponents. But the most important thing is mentally, in this competition it is hoped that they can develop and encourage their mentality to be well-managed and more mature,” added the 37-year-old coach.
In this competition, PFA met many level clubs from Malaysia and Brunei Darussalam. In the preliminary round of 4 teams, PFA accumulated 5 points from 2 draws and 1 win, and qualified for the knockout rounds as second place. PFA progressed smoothly to the next round and reached the final against TSS Selangor, although they eventually lost on penalties after a draw in normal time.
“By participating in this competition, automatically they will equalize their level with the abilities of the opponents. Hopefully this can make a difference for them to become professional soccer players in adulthood,” said Ardiles, who graduated from Persipura Jayapura.