U.17 Thailand and Indonesia call 'foreign players', dream of attending the World Cup like the Vietnam team

16 Asian teams compete for 8 spots at the U.17 World Cup

The three U.17 teams of Thailand, Indonesia and the Vietnamese youth team are the representatives of the Southeast Asian region, along with the Australian team, participating in the final round of the 2025 AFC U.17 Championship held in Saudi Arabia, to compete for up to 8 places in the U.17 World Cup, which for the first time will have 48 participating teams, instead of just 24 teams as before.

Match schedule of Vietnam U.17 team at the 2025 AFC U.17 Championship to compete for a ticket to the World Cup

Photo: VFF

The 2025 U.17 World Cup will be hosted by Qatar (from November 3 to 27). Therefore, the Asian region will have a total of 9 representatives participating in the finals.

The upcoming 2025 AFC U-17 Championship will feature 16 teams, divided into four groups of four teams each. The top two teams from each group will advance to the quarter-finals, meaning they will qualify for the 2025 U-17 World Cup.

The Vietnam U17 team, led by Brazilian coach Cristiano Roland, is in a very tough group B with opponents such as Australia, Japan and UAE. Meanwhile, the Thailand U17 team is in group A with the host team Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan and China. The Indonesia U17 team is in group C with opponents Korea, Yemen and Afghanistan. All three representatives of the Southeast Asian region have ambitions to pass the group stage to win a place at the World Cup in Qatar.

To prepare for this ambition, the Vietnam U17 team had a week-long training trip in Oman. Here, coach Cristiano Roland's team won both matches against the host country's U17 team, with a score of 1-0. Immediately after the training trip in Oman, the Vietnam U17 team moved to Saudi Arabia to prepare for the 2025 AFC U17 Championship. In the group stage, the team will face the Australian U17 team on April 4, the Japanese U17 team on April 7 and the UAE U17 team on April 10.

Vietnam U.17 team on a week-long training trip in Oman

Photo: VFF

Meanwhile, the U.17 Thailand team also arrived in Saudi Arabia last week, they had a very significant addition in the form of Silva Mexes from the MU youth team in England. This is a very promising player, whose mother is Thai and father is Welsh.

Silva Mexes just finished playing for the MU youth team on March 28 at the Premier League International Cup, in order to be in Saudi Arabia to strengthen the "War Elephants" youth team. Silva Mexes was directly invited by Madam Pang (billionaire Nualphan Lamsam), President of the Football Association of Thailand (FAT), to play for the Thailand U.17 team to increase the chance of winning a ticket to the World Cup.

Thailand U17 will have a training match with Japan U17 team, before finalizing the official list of 23 players for the Asian Cup finals. The young "War Elephants" will have their opening match in Group A against Uzbekistan on April 3, then against the host team Saudi Arabia on April 6 and the final match against China on April 9.

The Indonesian U.17 team also called up two players of Australian and American origin to the squad for the Asian tournament, defender Mathew Baker and midfielder Lucas Lee respectively.

These two players, along with other domestic players who have been trained from academies, such as Putu Panji, Evandra Florasta, Mochamad Mierza Firjatullah and Muhammad Zahaby Gholy, will be the hopes of the young team of the archipelago nation for their ambition to participate in the World Cup.

U.17 Indonesia will play the opening match in Group C against South Korea on April 4, Yemen on April 7, and the final match against Afghanistan on April 10.

Among the 3 Southeast Asian teams competing in the U.17 Asian Cup, Indonesia is considered to have a good chance of winning 1 of the 2 spots to continue and attend the World Cup, when only facing the strongest team in the group, South Korea, while the 2 teams Yemen and Afghanistan are not highly rated.

Meanwhile, U.17 Vietnam and Thailand both have to face very strong and ambitious competitors, namely Japan, Australia and UAE (Group B), and Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan and China (Group A).

Source: https://thanhnien.vn/u17-thai-lan-va-indonesia-goi-ngoai-binh-mo-du-world-cup-nhu-doi-viet-nam-185250331100951747.htm