Tournament situation

The 2023 AFC U17 Championship will be the 20th edition of the tournament, including past U16 editions. This year's event will be held in Thailand with 16 of the continent's strongest teams.

Notably, all 16 teams qualified, including Thailand U17. The reason is that the original host was Bahrain, but the country withdrew its hosting rights. The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) cannot announce the host country before the qualifiers start and the 6th best runner-up team also gets a place.

The Vietnam U17 team is expected to go deep in the 2023 U17 Asia. Photo: VFF

The reigning champion of the Southeast Asian U16 tournament, Indonesia, failed to qualify after losing to U16 Malaysia. However, the AFF still has 4 representatives participating in the 2023 AFC U17 Championship finals, including Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia and Laos.

The draw of luck put the host team Thailand in an easy group with Yemen, Malaysia and Laos. Meanwhile, U17 Vietnam fell into a difficult group (Group D) with opponents from Japan, India and Uzbekistan. Accordingly, U17 Japan is the most successful team of the tournament with 4 championships. This is not an easy challenge for coach Hoang Anh Tuan and his team.

Competition format

According to the AFC format, 16 teams are divided into 4 groups, playing a round robin to select the top two teams in each group to enter the knockout round. It is known that the 4 teams entering the semi-finals of the 2023 AFC U17 Championship will participate in the 2023 U17 World Cup, scheduled to be held in Peru next October.

How did U17 Vietnam prepare for the tournament?

To prepare for the tournament, U17 Vietnam had 6 friendly matches in Qatar and Japan (3 wins, 2 draws and 1 loss). The highlight of which was the 2-0 win over U17 Qatar, a team also participating in the 2023 AFC U17 Championship finals.

Although in a difficult group, fans can still expect surprises from U17 Vietnam because in the qualifying round, our players excellently won first place in group F with a perfect record and did not concede any goals.

Match schedule of U17 Vietnam

U17 Vietnam will play U17 India at 7:00 p.m. on June 17.

U17 Vietnam will play U17 Japan at 5:00 p.m. on June 20.

U17 Vietnam will play U17 Uzbekistan at 7:00 p.m. on June 23.

Watch live U17 Asia 2023 on which channel?

All matches at the 2023 AFC U17 Championship finals will be broadcast live onFPT Play platforms.

Readers are invited to follow information and competition results of the Vietnam U17 team on the People's Army Electronic Newspaper at: https://www.qdnd.vn/the-thao/quoc-te.

List of Vietnam U17 team participating in the 2023 AFC U17 Championship. Photo: VFF

Thai Ha