Today (October 23), the Vietnam U17 team will officially enter the competition in Group I of the 2025 U17 Asian qualifiers. Before the opening match, coach Cristiano Roland made a decision on personnel with 23 selected players.
The three players who had to leave the team were Thai Hieu, Duc Nhat and Van Phuc. Although they were not allowed to compete in the 2025 U17 Asian qualifiers, these three players will continue to stay and train with the team.
Coach Cristiano Roland said he wanted to motivate and maintain the training program for young players.
"We aim for a common goal to show fighting spirit and solidarity. The group stage of U17 Vietnam is not easy. The challenges are very difficult but the team will compete with all their might. I also hope to receive the support of fans in the stands for the upcoming matches," the Brazilian coach shared.
Center back Le Huy Viet Anh, captain of the Vietnam U17 team, also expressed: "To prepare for the tournament, we had a training trip in Japan and accumulated a lot of competition experience. Up to now, although the training intensity and the coach's requirements are quite high, the whole team has made efforts to complete the requirements of expertise, technique and tactics well.
In the upcoming important matches, the Vietnam U17 team hopes to have a large number of fans come to cheer and accompany the whole team."
According to the match schedule, the Vietnam U17 team will meet U17 Kyrgyzstan (October 23), U17 Myanmar (October 25) and U17 Yemen (October 27).
The 2025 AFC U-17 Championship qualifiers initially featured 43 teams and were drawn into 10 groups, with seven groups of four teams and three groups of five. The top 10 teams from each group, along with the five best runners-up, will advance to the finals, along with host Saudi Arabia.
However, due to the U17 Lebanon team not participating for objective reasons, Group H only has 3 teams left: Laos, Malaysia and UAE. This causes the calculation of points for the second-placed teams to fluctuate.
For groups of 4 teams (such as the group of U17 Vietnam), the results of the second-placed team against the bottom team will not be counted. For groups of 5 teams, the results of the second-placed team against the 4th and 5th placed teams in the group will not be considered.
