The ASEAN U16 Boys' Championship 2024, hosted by the ASEAN Football Federation, took place from 21 June to 3 July 2024 in Surakarta, Indonesia.

12 teams, comprising 11 ASEAN nations and Australia, were divided into three groups for the group stage, with the first-place team in each group and the best runner-up team advancing to the semi-finals to compete for the title.

Cambodia was grouped with Myanmar, Vietnam and Brunei Darussalam. We won our first match against Myanmar 2-1, followed by a 1-1 draw with Vietnam and a 6-0 win over Brunei Darussalam to finish the group stage with 7 points and a goal difference of +7. We finished second in our group behind Vietnam on goal difference, but Thailand, from a different group, finished with the best record of the runners-up (7 points, +8 goal difference) and Cambodia unfortunately was not able to advance to the semi-finals.

The team played three matches and did not lose a single game, but both Myanmar and Vietnam dominated possession against us and created numerous chances that almost resulted in goals. Also, despite not facing them during the tournament, there was a notable competitive gap between Cambodia when compared to the winning team Australia, the runners-up Thailand, and the third-placed Indonesia.

For me, the tournament provided an invaluable opportunity to gain insight into Cambodia's current position in Southeast Asia and to benchmark our performance against teams and players from other countries.

I have now returned to Cambodia to conduct training sessions at the national academy. The players, who have represented their country at this tournament for the first time, have gained a great deal of confidence and are training with greater enthusiasm than ever.

The AFC U17 Asian Cup™ 2025 Qualifiers will be held in October. As hosts of Group B, Cambodia will play against Bangladesh, Macau, Afghanistan and the Philippines. The team is preparing to take part in consecutive international competitions in their age group and our aim is to qualify for the main tournament. We will do our best to prepare the U-16 Cambodia National Team players to compete strongly in front of their home crowd.