On the homepage, FIFA described this as "a day that went down in the history of Vietnamese football", while emphasizing the bravery of coach Cristiano Roland and his team in the emotional comeback against the West Asian representative.
According to FIFA, U17 UAE soon took the lead thanks to Sultan Nasir Al KWAiri's goal in the early minutes of the match. However, U17 Vietnam played with full determination to reverse the situation.
The drama was pushed to a climax when Adam Mahrous scored the equalizer 2-2 for UAE. However, at the most stressful time, Nguyen Manh Cuong jumped high to head the decisive goal, bringing a historic 3-2 victory for the young Vietnamese team.
FIFA emphasized: "That night belonged to Vietnam", and affirmed that U17 Vietnam is the only representative of Southeast Asia to qualify for the 2026 U17 World Cup finals.
This year's tournament marks a new milestone for world youth football when for the first time 48 teams participate, instead of 24 teams as before. FIFA also continues to apply the annual organization cycle for the period 2025-2029 to increase opportunities for young football backgrounds to rub shoulders.
According to the plan, Qatar will host the final round from November 19 to December 13, 2026. This is also the first country to host 5 consecutive U17 World Cups, taking advantage of the modern infrastructure system that served the 2022 World Cup.
The Asian region has now identified enough 9 representatives to participate in the tournament, including host Qatar and U17 Saudi Arabia, U17 Tajikistan, U17 Japan, U17 China, U17 Australia, U17 Uzbekistan, U17 Korea and U17 Vietnam. The draw for the final round is expected to take place on May 21 in Zurich (Switzerland).
