The national teams of Thailand, Kuwait, Mongolia and the Maldives were drawn as opponents of the Turkmen football players following the draw held in Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) for the qualifying tournament of the 21st Asian Cup among youth teams under 17 years old, the final part of which will be held from 7th to 24th of May, 2026 in Saudi Arabia.

The qualification will involve 38 teams divided into seven groups. Three will have six teams, and four will have five teams.

As a result of the draw, Turkmenistan and its opponents ended up in Group «F», the matches in which will be held in the city of Chonburi (Thailand).

The composition of the others:

Group «A»: China (home team), Bangladesh, Bahrain, Brunei, East Timor, Sri Lanka;

Group «B»: Yemen, Laos, Kyrgyz Republic (home team), Cambodia, Guam, Pakistan;

Group «C»: Vietnam (home team), Malaysia, Singapore, Chinese Hong Kong, Northern Mariana Islands, Macau;

Group «D»: Iran, India (home team), Palestine, Chinese Taipei, Lebanon;

Group «E»: Australia, Iraq, Philippines, Jordan (home team), Bhutan;

Group «G»: Oman, Afghanistan, Myanmar (home team), Syria, Nepal.

The qualifying matches in all groups will be held from 22nd to 30th of November 2025 in a centralised single round-robin format.

The group winners will advance to the final round. In the last stage of the competition, they will join nine AFC representatives – Qatar, Uzbekistan, Saudi Arabia, the Republic of Korea, the DPRK, Japan, Tajikistan, the United Arab Emirates and Indonesia – who have automatically qualified for the FIFA U17 World Cup Qatar 2025.

Earlier this year, the Turkmenistan U17 youth football team won bronze medals for the first time at the Central Asian Football Association (CAFA) Championship in Tashkent, defeating the Kyrgyzstan team in the match for 3rd place on penalties – 7:6 (in regular time – 0:0). The team was led to this success by Ahmet Allaberdiyev as head coach.