Vietnam to play Japan in U20 futsal champs

Vietnam will play rivals Japan in Group B of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) U20 Futsal Championship, after a draw was held on March 30 in Bangkok, Thailand.

Draw results for the 2017 AFC U20 Futsal Championship.

As this year’s event is the first edition, the teams were seeded according to senior teams' performance in the 2016 AFC Futsal Championship, in which Vietnam finished in fourth place. Vietnam were in Pot 1 with Iran, Uzbekistan and hosts Thailand.

The draw results put Vietnam together with Chinese Taipei, Indonesia, Tajikistan and Japan in the same group. Japan, the continental power house in both futsal and football, are considered the title favourites and most likely to claim the group ticket to the quarterfinals.

The remaining ticket will be determined by competition among the four other teams, so there is a good chance to secure a place in the quarterfinals for U20 Vietnam.

2017 AFC U20 Futsal Championship is held for the first time for young players to promote the sport and develop young training systems across Asia. The tournament will take place in Bangkok, Thailand from May 16-26.

The biennial international futsal event has attracted the participation of 21 men's youth national teams, divided into four groups, of which one group features six teams and three groups of five teams each. The teams in each group will compete in a round-robin format to select the top two teams advancing into the quarter-finals.

The tournament will serve as a qualifier for the futsal tournament at the 2018 Summer Youth Olympics in Buenos Aires, Argentina, with the winner and the runner-up qualifying for the boys' tournament, where they will be represented by their U18 representative teams.

2017 AFC U20 Futsal Championship group stage draws:

Group A: Thailand, Iraq, Malaysia, Brunei, Bahrain, Afghanistan

Group B: Vietnam, Japan, Chinese Taipei, Tajikistan, Indonesia

Group C: Uzbekistan, Qatar, Lebanon, Myanmar, Hong Kong (China)

Group D: Iran, Kyrgyzstan, China, Mongolia, United Arab Emirates

(Source: NDO)