On Saturday 30 April, the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) hosted the draw for the AFC U-19 Championship Bahrain 2016 (from 13 to 30 October) in Manama, Bahrain.

As a result, the U-19 Japan National Team has been placed in Group C with Qatar, Yemen, and Iran. Please see the following for details of the schedule and a comment from the coach UCHIYAMA Atsushi:

AFC U-19 Championship Bahrain 2016 (from 13 to 30 October) Fixtures

* The participating teams will play round-robin matches in the group stage. The top two in each group will get through to the knockout stage. The semi-finalists will book places in the FIFA U-20 World Cup in Korea Republic next year.

If Korea Republic become the semi-finalist, there will be a fifth-place match among the teams, who lost in the quarterfinals.

Coach Comment

UCHIYAMA Atsushi, Coach
The game schedule of the AFC U-19 Championship has been fixed and we’re in the same group as Qatar, Yemen, and Iran. As all of them are strong teams, we expect that every match will be tough. Having said that, we will play as hard as possible with a challenger’s spirit in every single game to win, so that we can book a place in the FIFA U-20 World Cup in Korea Republic next year. We won’t waste time at all, holding productive training sessions and playing practice games, in preparation for October. I expect that the young players will perform well to get good results in the AFC U-19 Championship and some international experience. Your support will be much appreciated.