Jayapura – The division of soccer preliminary groups for the National Sports Week or PON XXI Aceh – North Sumatra has been carried out by PSSI on Saturday (10/8/2024). The PON Papua Football Team, both the women’s team and the men’s team, are both members of a group inhabited by a number of superior teams. With poor preparation, the opportunity for them to repeat the winning achievement at PON XX Papua will be difficult to realize.
The PON Papua Men’s Football Team joined Group C, along with Riau Province, East Java and the debutant Papua Mountains team. While the PON Papua Women’s Football Team is joined in Group B which contains DKI Jakarta and South Sulawesi.
Both groups are fairly heavy groups. The PON Papua Men’s Football Team, for example, must compete with the East Java team, which has a track record of often appearing competitive in PON. The East Java PON Men’s Soccer Team is trained by an experienced tactician who is also the former architect of the Indonesian national team, Fakhri Husaini. The Indonesian soccer legend is also the Director of the Deltras Sidoarjo club Academy.
The other two teams in Group C of the PON XXI preliminary round are the Riau and Papua Mountains teams. Both teams cannot be underestimated. Riau is now coached by former Sriwijaya FC and Persija Jakarta retainer Ambrizal. While the Papua Mountains team, which is a PON debutant, is an undefeated team in the qualifying round between the New Autonomous Regions (DOB) resulting from the expansion of Papua Province.
Heavy competition will also be faced by the PON Papua Women’s Football Team. The team trained by Thomas Madjar is also faced with opponents who are not easy. The DKI Jakarta PON Women’s Football Team will be the strongest competitor. The DKI Jakarta team qualified for PON XXI after winning Group B of the PON XXI qualifying round. Not only never lost, the goal of the DKI Jakarta women’s team was never even conceded. At that time, they poured 17 goals against Lampung and Banten.
The other occupant of Group B is the South Sulawesi team. The South Sulawesi PON Women’s Football Team is the champion of Group F of the PON XXI qualifying round. Similar to the DKI Jakarta women’s team, the South Sulawesi women’s team also never lost during the PON XXI qualifying round, never conceded, and scored 19 goals against Gorontalo and West Sulawesi.
“We must have qualified preparation, the team must be ready with careful preparation. We also have to look for data about our potential opponents,” Fairyo said.
