Tomorrow, Wednesday, the Qatari national under-17 football team will face its counterpart, the Mongolian national team, at the Aspire 7 Academy Stadium, at the beginning of its campaign in the sixth group competitions in the 2025 Asian Cup qualifiers, qualifying for the finals scheduled in Saudi Arabia from April 3 to 20 next. .
Group Six includes Japan, the defending champion and winner of the tournament four times, and Nepal, which made its last continental appearance in the 2014 edition.
In a second match within the same group, the Japanese national team will face its counterpart, the Nepal national team, at Hamad bin Khalifa Stadium.
The Qatari team is looking forward to making a strong start in the group competitions in order to increase its chances of advancing and qualifying twelfth for the continental finals.
The technical staff relies on a number of players, led by the Al Sadd trio Tamim Al Qadi, Sultan Majid and Faisal Saeed, in addition to the Al Duhail trio Saud Khamis, Yazan Hani and Adam Riyad.
The Qatari team hopes to win the three points tomorrow, before facing the second round in the group, when it meets its counterpart, the Nepal national team, next Friday, in order to decide the top spot in the group and snatch the direct ticket to the finals.
For its part, the Mongolian national team aspires to make its first appearance in the finals, as it has never qualified in the previous editions, and is well aware of the difficulty of its task in light of its presence in a group that includes former champions.
The Qatari team had won its only continental title in the 1990 edition, which was hosted by the Emirates, by defeating the host country’s team with two clean goals, which placed the coronation best among the champion teams.
The continental championship, which was launched for the first time in 1985 in Qatar, witnessed the Qatari team coming in runner-up after reaching the final match, and playing a strong confrontation against its Saudi counterpart, where regular time ended in a goalless draw, so penalty kicks were used to determine the winner of the title, and the Saudi team defeated its host with a score of 4. – 3.
The following year, luck did not help the Qatari team compensate for what happened in the first edition, so they lost the title by penalty kicks in the second edition, which was also held in Doha, where luck smiled on the South Korean team on penalty kicks 5-4 in the final match.
The Qatari team continued its success in this tournament after it was able to reach the final of the next two editions, but it lost to the Chinese team on penalties and to the Japanese team, in 1992 and 1994, respectively.
The Qatari team finished runner-up in the 1998 edition, which took place in Doha, after reaching the final before losing to the Thai team on penalty kicks 3/2 after a 1-1 draw in regular time.
Ahmed Madouni, the coach of the Qatari national team, had called up 23 players, including three goalkeepers: Ahmed Saber (Al-Arabi), Bakri Muhammad, and Abdul Rahman Khaled (Al-Rayyan).
The list included: Tamim Al-Qadi, Sultan Majid, Karam Hadi, Muhammad Jihad, Omar Abdulaziz, Ward Osama, Sheikh Nadaw, Faisal Saeed (Al-Sadd), Saud Khamis, Malik Majid, Muhannad Jameel, Muhammad Akram, Yazan Hani, and Adam Riyad ( Al-Duhail), Youssef Salman (Al-Markhiya), Zaid Faisal, Emmanuel Francis (Al-Gharafa), Saif Al-Din Ahmed (Qatar), Salman Anwar (Umm Salal), and Abdulaziz Younis (Al-Ahly).
The 43 teams participating in the qualifiers were divided into 10 groups, with seven groups containing four teams, compared to three groups containing five teams, with the qualifiers being held between October 19 and 27.
The first-place finishers in each of the ten groups, along with the five best second-placed teams, will qualify for the finals hosted by Saudi Arabia.