The reporter reported coldly On the afternoon of January 23, the draw ceremony for the group stage of the 2025 U17 Asian Cup was held in Kuala Lumpur, 16 teams were divided into four groups, and the national youth was in the fourth pot due to poor results in previous sessions. Therefore, this draw is considered by the outside world to be a lot.

This year's U17 Asian Cup is the Asian qualifier for this year's U17 World Cup. From 2025, the U17 World Cup will be expanded to 48 teams, and at the same time, it will be changed to an annual session. The number of qualifiers in Asia has increased from the previous four teams to eight, meaning that the top two teams in each group of the U17 Asian Cup will qualify for the U17 World Cup in Qatar in November. This year is a good time for the national junior team, which has missed the U17 World Cup for eight consecutive editions – of course, it is also not easy, after all, the last time the national junior team reached the quarterfinals of the Asian Junior Championship was in 2006, and even five of the seven editions have stopped in the group stage, and in 2016 and 2018, they did not even enter the finals.

However, the Chinese Football Association previously put forward 11 main goals of Chinese football in 2025 in the "2024 Chinese Football Association Work Report", of which the third "further strengthening the construction of the national team" includes the goal of "striving for the men's U17 Asian Cup to reach the World Cup finals".

The current national junior team is coached by Kenichi Uemura and performed well in last year's warm-up matches and the U17 Asian Cup qualifiers. In the Shenyang Peace Cup in August last year, they defeated Vietnam 4-0, Japan 1-2, and Uzi 2-1. In the qualifiers in October last year, the national junior team defeated Bahrain, Bhutan and Maldives successively, and finally drew 2-2 with South Korea, and advanced to the U17 Asian Cup finals with the best five group results. At that time, the performance of the national junior players at the home of Dalian also won the recognition of most domestic fans.

After the Romanian Four Nations Tournament in April last year, the Shanghai warm-up match in June, the Shenyang Four Nations Tournament in August and the U17 Asian Cup qualifiers, the national junior team lineup has been relatively stable. In March this year, the team will also organize a pre-match training camp, which will be advanced to West Asia for adaptation training.

It is worth mentioning that in last year's Shenyang Four Nations Tournament, the national junior team and Uzi have already played against each other, and they have a certain understanding of their Central Asian opponents. In addition, he also played against Vietnam, which is similar in strength and style to its opponent Thailand in the same group. The only regret is that, except for last year's qualifier opponent Bahrain, the national junior team has hardly played against West Asian teams in the past year. The draw was drawn in the same group as the Saudi Arabian team, which had the advantage of the host, but its technical and tactical style was not similar to that of Bahrain.

The Saudi team was in the right place at the right time, but due to the host's status, it did not participate in the qualifiers. In February last year, they participated in the Four Nations Tournament in Spain, losing 3-1 to England and Sweden, drawing 1-1 with South Korea and winning on penalties. In March, they played the Montague Youth Championship, where Saudi Arabia lost to Argentina, France and Ivory Coast by consecutive scores; In the West Asia Youth Championship in September, the Saudi team defeated Oman and then Yemen, defeated Palestine in the semifinals, and defeated Syria on penalties in the final to win the championship.

The Uzi team won 3 wins and 1 defeat in four matches against Hungary in May and September last year, and in October last year, they won all three games without conceding a goal, beating West Asian powerhouse Iraq to top the group. If there are no surprises, Uzi should be the strongest team in this group, although it has lost against the Chinese national youth before, it is not the main team. In recent years, the young age of Uzbekistan have developed rapidly, and in the last 6 U17 Asian Cups, they have reached the quarterfinals 5 times, a champion and a runner-up. In the 2023 U17 World Cup, they reached the quarterfinals, and in the quarterfinals, they only lost 0-1 to France.

Thailand, by contrast, were slightly weaker, but beat Vietnam 2-1 at last year's Under-16 Southeast Asia Youth Championship and lost to Australia on penalties in the final. In the qualifiers last October, they won all three games and conceded a goal ratio of 24 to 2, but their opponents were weak, and they only beat India 3-2 and Turkmenistan 2-0.

The final stage of the U17 Asian Cup will be held in Saudi Arabia from April 3 to 20, and the venue has not yet been finalized.