{"id":37208,"date":"2019-08-09T11:30:32","date_gmt":"2019-08-09T18:30:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/?p=37208"},"modified":"2019-08-09T11:30:32","modified_gmt":"2019-08-09T18:30:32","slug":"cafa-u-19-championship-young-aces-set-for-central-asian-showdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2019\/08\/09\/cafa-u-19-championship-young-aces-set-for-central-asian-showdown\/","title":{"rendered":"CAFA U-19 Championship: Young aces set for Central Asian showdown"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

AFC – DUSHANBE, Tajikistan will play host to some of Central Asia\u2019s best young talent for the second time in less than a month as the region\u2019s future stars converge on Dushanbe for the 2019 CAFA U-19 Championship, starting Friday.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

With Central Asia\u2019s U-16 Championship – won in style by the hosts – fresh in the memory, a slightly older generation of players are set to battle for regional bragging rights, as well as prepare for this year\u2019s all-important AFC U-19 Championship 2020 Qualifiers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The tournament, which runs until next Thursday, will see each team meet once on a round-robin basis, with the team on top of table at the end of the 10-match schedule to be crowned Central Asian champions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Uzbekistan are the defending champions, having defeated Kyrgyz Republic to win the inaugural staging in 2016.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite the absence of some players due to club duties, head coach Otabek Gulyamkhodjaev is satisfied with the depth of his squad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEvery month we collect guys and conduct training,\u201d he explained at the pre-tournament press conference on Thursday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHere in Dushanbe, we were unable to bring a few players who play in the Uzbekistan Super League but, nevertheless, this generation of players is very strong. We have two equal teams, and each player is ready to replace each other.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Uzbekistan will begin their campaign against an Islamic Republic of Iran side led by former Esteghlal Khuzestan and Foolad boss Sirous Pourmousavi, who is similarly confident of his side\u2019s chances in the tournament.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe brought our strongest squad,\u201d he declared. \u201cWe will try to perform as successfully as possible and take first place in the tournament.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That clash between regional heavyweights is set to headline Friday\u2019s opening day, with Ahmad Ziyo Azimi\u2019s Afghanistan to face Aziz Kambarov\u2019s Turkmenistan in the tournament\u2019s first match at Dushanbe Central Stadium.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tajikistan will be the last team to begin their campaign, with the hosts having to wait until Saturday to begin their campaign against Turkmenistan in what local fans hope will be the latest step in a series of success stories in youth football in country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to the current U-16 crop going undefeated on the way to the regional title earlier this month, Zaynidin Rakhimov \u2013 Tajikistan\u2019s coach in the coming tournament \u2013 led the nation to the unprecedented achievement of reaching the AFC U-16 Championship Final in Malaysia last October.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tajikistan\u2019s heroics in that tournament also booked their place in this year\u2019s FIFA U-17 World Cup in Brazil, and Rakhimov said the week ahead will play a key role in preparing for an appearance on the world stage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is a very important championship to see what our team are capable of,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe main backbone of our youth team are 17 years old, therefore, in addition to the qualifying tournament for the AFC U-19 Championship in 2020, we are simultaneously preparing for the U-17 World Cup in Brazil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur goal in the CAFA Championship is to achieve a good result, and we are ready for the tournament.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The CAFA U-19 Championship will conclude on August 15, with the AFC U-19 Championship 2020 Qualifiers to be held throughout the Continent in November.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AFC – DUSHANBE, Tajikistan will play host to some of Central Asia\u2019s best young talent…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26307,"featured_media":37209,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90,84,92,140,91,86,133],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c17-asian-competitions","category-c47-featured-news","category-c21-international-football-news","category-iran-u19","category-c20-other-news","category-c13-team-melli-news","category-c14-youth-teams"],"views":820,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26307"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37208"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37208\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37210,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37208\/revisions\/37210"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}