On the afternoon of August 7, the Asian Football Confederation held a draw for the 2026 U17 Asian qualifiers. Accordingly, U17 Vietnam is in Group C with U17 Malaysia, U17 Singapore, U17 Hong Kong (China), U17 Northern Mariana Islands and U17 Macau (China).
In this qualifying round, the Vietnam Football Federation was given the right to host the group with the participation of U17 Vietnam. This is considered a big advantage for coach Cristiano Roland and his team. The matches will take place from November 22 to November 30, 2025.
The 2026 U17 Asian qualifiers will apply a new competition format with 38 teams divided into 7 groups (3 groups have 6 teams, 4 groups have 5 teams). The top 7 teams in each group will qualify for the finals.
In addition, there are 9 teams that have been given special opportunities to go straight, including host country U17 Qatar (host country FIFA U17 World Cup 2026) and 8 teams in the quarter-finals of 2025 U17 Asia: Uzbekistan, Saudi Arabia, Korea, the Democratic People's Republic of the Korean Republic, Tajikistan, Japan, UAE and Indonesia.
To prepare for the U17 Asian qualifiers, U17 Vietnam will gather at the end of October 2025. It is expected that coach Cristiano Roland and his team will have a training trip in Japan before officially entering the tournament.
At the international tournament in China held in June 2025, U17 Vietnam had positive results when defeating Saudi Arabia, drawing with China and only losing narrowly to Australia. These are positive signals for the journey to find a ticket to the final round of U17 Vietnam.
