Kolkata: The journey of the India U17 Football team has already ended in the ongoing FIFA U17 World Cup 2017 couple of days back and surprisingly the All India Football Federation (AIFF) has already chalked out the future road map of the U17 colts. They have already signed few players from the U17 squad who will feature in the I-League which will start later in November. For now, the U17 team’s next tour would be the U19 AFC Championship Qualifiers, which will begin in Saudi Arabia from November 4. Ahead of that twelve U19 players and the U17 colts will join a camp under India’s U-17 coach Luis Norton de Matos. The camp might take place in Goa or Bangalore from October 17.
The India colts are placed in Group B and they will face stiff challenges from Yemen, Turkmenistan and hosts Saudi Arabia. If the team can qualify for the AFC Championships, which will happen in Indonesia on 2018, they will get a great opportunity to qualify for the U20 World Cup in 2019 as the top four sides will get a direct ticket to play for the World Cup.
“The coach will decide who will join the camp on October 17 for the U-19 AFC Championship qualifiers .As it will be a U19 tournament, we cannot take all the 21 players from U17 squad. The coach have called 12 players from U19 squad and he will choose the rest of the players from the U17 squad who will play in the U-19 AFC Championship qualifiers,” said AIFF general secretary Kushal Das to www.xtratime.in.
This new team will participate in a friendly game against Quatar in Doha and then will travel to Saudi Arabia to play the all important qualifiers.