The Garuda International Cup (GIC) 2024 event has truly captured attention. In this year’s edition, at least eight countries from Asia are participating.
Besides Indonesia as the host, the participating countries include Japan, the Philippines, Malaysia, Cambodia, Singapore, and Australia. One of the regular participants in this event is NFDP.
The team, under the Malaysian Ministry of Sports, competes in the U-12 category. Muhammad Khairi, the coach of the NFDP U-12 team, highly appreciates the GIC 2024 event.
According to him, the competition at GIC is becoming increasingly competitive each year. He referred to the participation of teams from Japan, which makes the battle for the championship even more interesting and challenging.
Not intimidated by Japan’s strong presence, Khairi also hopes that in future editions, teams from South Korea or other strong football nations will participate.
“This year is very competitive because there are many teams from Japan, which wasn’t the case last year. Maybe in the coming years, there will be teams from Korea or other strong football nations,” said Khairi.
“It’s not about winning, as I mentioned, but about giving the kids the chance to experience competing against other countries,” he added.
Even though the presence of teams from Japan has made the competition for the championship tougher, Khairi remains undeterred and will continue to motivate his players to use this event to improve their quality and mentality.
“Yes, we don’t pressure the players to win. But we, the coaching staff, will try to give the kids the opportunity to experience an international tournament that is above the standard of the tournaments they usually participate in in Malaysia,” Khairi said.
“We hope that GIC will continue to grow and attract even better teams in the future,” he concluded.
The NFDP U-12 team has successfully advanced to the knockout stage or the top 8, which will take place on Saturday (24/8/2024) at ATG Sentul.