Akhil Rawat
AIFF Media Team

KOLKATA: It's finally time for the big one as the Indian U17 men's national team departed for Chonburi, Thailand for the AFC U17 Asian Cup Saudi Arabia 2025 Qualifiers on Sunday, October 20. Ishfaq Ahmed and his boys will aim to match the benchmark set by the previous batches and clinch a fifth consecutive Asian U17/U16 final tournament qualification for the nation.

The importance of the AFC U17 Asian Cup cannot be stressed enough. The youngest age-group continental competition will provide an opportunity for 16 Asian teams to battle for eight berths in the newly-expanded 48-team FIFA U17 World Cup, which will take place in Qatar next year.

To be entitled to dream of that, the Blue Colts need to surpass the Chonburi challenge. India will face Brunei Darussalam (October 23), Turkmenistan (October 25) and hosts Thailand (October 27) in Group D at the Chonburi Stadium. The 10 group winners and five best second-placed teams will join hosts Saudi Arabia at the AFC U17 Asian Cup 2025.

India will arrive in the south-east Asian nation on a good momentum after dominantly claiming the SAFF U17 Championship trophy in Bhutan last month. Following the triumph, the Blue Colts returned to their base camp in Srinagar, where they had been training since July. On July 13, the squad moved to Kolkata, which has a similar weather to Chonburi, and most importantly, a natural grass pitch for training.

"Before travelling to Kolkata, we played a match with Real Kashmir FC's first team. I wanted our players to play with bigger, stronger boys. Then a couple of days ago, we played against Diamond Harbour FC, the I-League 3 champions. We had a good outing and I was pleased to see them compete physically," said head coach Ishfaq Ahmed.

DHFC played against the India U-17 national team as they prepare for the Asian qualifiers. The entire DHFC family wish Team India all the best for their campaign 💪#DHFC #DumdaarHarBaarDiamondHarbour #indianfootball #practicematch pic.twitter.com/xSbTMrCr1G

— DHFC (@dhfootballclub) October 18, 2024

"Coming to Kolkata was a good decision. We got to train on a grass pitch. We spent the last three months playing on artificial turf since the SAFF U17 Championship was to be held on turf. Since switching our training to grass, the boys have adjusted well. We got almost a week here and had a couple of practice matches under our belt. We'll have two more sessions in Thailand before our first game and we'll be good to go," he added.

India U17 are boosted by the return of striker Prem Hansdak from injury. The 16-year-old was the top-scorer in the 2023-24 AIFF U17 Youth League with 19 goals in 12 matches for Zinc FA. Hansdak suffered a hamstring injury just two days before he was supposed to travel to Bhutan for the SAFF U17 Championship, and hence couldn't make the squad, but is now fully fit and ready to fire in Thailand.

"Prem had been part of our plans for a long time. He had travelled to Indonesia for the friendly matches before SAFF. But unfortunately, his hamstring injury prevented him from going to Bhutan. He is back to full fitness now and it was a no-brainer to pick him in the squad. He was the top-scorer of the U17 Youth League. I'm happy that now we have three proper strikers in the squad (Bharat Lairenjam and Hemneichung Lunkim being the other two)," Ahmed shared.