The 2026 AFC U17 Championship finals will take place from May 5 to 23 in Saudi Arabia with the participation of 16 leading youth teams in the continent. This is the 21st time the tournament has been organized by the Asian Football Confederation, and also a direct qualifying round for the 2026 U17 World Cup finals.
Not only competing for the Asian championship, the participating teams also aim to win tickets to the U17 World Cup. According to the format, 8 teams participating in the quarter-finals (first and second in each group) will officially win the right to participate in the World Youth Football Festival.
In addition, if host Qatar passes the AFC U17 Championship group stage, AFC can award another spot to the 3rd-placed team with the best results.
This year's tournament continues to gather many strong young football nations of the region such as U17 Japan, U17 Korea or U17 Uzbekistan, U17 Saudi Arabia, U17 UAE, U17 Australia...
According to the draw results, U17 Vietnam is in Group C with U17 Korea, U17 UAE and U17 Yemen. This is considered a highly competitive group when the opponents all possess good physical foundation and international competition experience.
Coach Cristiano Roland and his team set a goal to get through the group stage to win the right to participate in the U17 World Cup for the first time. However, the journey of U17 Vietnam is predicted to be not simple.
