Maldives U19 national team has began the trainings towards the coming two tournaments. Right now U19 is conducting trials and team finalizing sessions. This year for U19 side, the two tournaments to participate will be, U19 SAFF Championship and the AFC U19 Championship 2018 Qualifiers.

U19 national side also will be led by Senior national team coach, Darren Stewart. And Mohamed Shaahidh (Shaadh), Ahmed Shakir (Shaakitte) will be working as his assistants in the team while Ahmed Ahsan (Baro) will be leading as the goalkeeper trainer.

First challenges for the national U19 side comes, “U19 SAFF Championship” in this coming September 2017. This year’s tournament will the second edition of its kind and tournament is expected to host by Bangladesh from 22nd September 2017 onwards. Maldives has already participated in U19 SAFF Championship debut tournament . It is expected that 7 countries from SAFF will take part in the tournament while the draw is yet to be finalized.

Next, and the biggest challenge comes for the U19 side will be, “AFC U19 Championship 2018 Qualifiers”. It seems just couple of weeks after U19 SAFF, in October, U19 national side has to leave for the AFC U19 Championship 2018 Qualifiers. Where 43 countries from 47 AFC member countries will be participating in the qualifiers. But only 16 nations will be advancing to final tournament while 43 participants have being grouped into 10 groups. That will be The 10 group winners and 5 best group runner-ups and the final tournament hosting country. As already the draw for the qualifiers have being finalized, Maldives is placed in group B with strong contenders, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

As each groups qualifying matches will be hosted by different countries, this group’s matches will be hosted in Tajikistan from 31st October to 08th November 2017. In Maldives first match, Maldives will face Sri Lanka on 31st October2017.

(Sources: Wikipedia, AFC.com)