Maldives under 19 national team has departed to Tajikistan for the AFC U19 Qualifiers.

After a short camp in Addu City, where the team carried out numbers of training and played a friendly match against a selected side from Addu City, Maldives under 19 side has taken off for their second tournament of the year. Maldives junior national team completed the final training session in Capital Male' City prior to the yesterday night departure. Team departed with 23 players and 6 officials where few new players have being included to the new squad.

Recently  Football Association of Maldives has launched a visionary plan to build the future through the youth system and under 19 national team's training camp in Addu City was part of it where under 19 national team played a friendly match against a selective youth players team from Addu City and players from nearby islands. The aim was to find local youth talents and players with great potential to serve national youth sides. Have to say it was a successful match where under 19 national coach Ihsan Abdul Ghani (Saanthi) has already chosen five players from them and handover their name to the association for their future arrangements.

Maldives under 19 side has already gained the experience from the U-18 SAFF Championship 2017 in Bhutan. AFC will be the biggest challenge for the Maldives U19 side, as Maldives is placed in group B with strong contenders, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

In AFC U19 Championship 2018 Qualifiers , 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.

Maldives first match will be against neighboring Sri Lanka one 31^st October.

Second match for Maldives will be against neighboring Bangladesh on 2^nd November.

Third for Maldives comes Uzbekistan on 4^th November.

And in the last match of qualifiers Maldives will meet hosting nation for this group qualifiers matches, Tajikistan, on 6^th November.