08 Jan 2020
Bangkok, 8 January 2020. It’s getting serious for Qatar’s U23 Football National Team as they start into the AFC U23 Championship Thailand 2020 with their first group game against Syria on Thursday at 1:15pm.
Group B contenders, Qatar, Japan, Saudi Arabia and Syria, will kick off their campaigns in Bangkok on January 9, the top two sides in Group B will qualify for the quarter-finals, while the tournament’s top three finishers will earn places at the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games.
Qatar, that features many players developed at Aspire Academy, will be looking to go at least one step further at Thailand 2020 than they have in previous involvements in the competition as the West Asian side seek to overcome their inability to advance beyond the semi-finals.
Qatar reached the last four in both 2016 and 2018, only to fall short of reaching the final on both occasions, with the added heartbreak of a loss in the third-place play-off on home soil four years ago seeing them miss out on a place at the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.
National team coach Felix Sanchez helms the side – as he did in the last two editions of the tournament – and he will be hoping he can have a second successful January in a row after steering the senior squad to the AFC Asian Cup title in the United Arab Emirates last year.
After the opening game against Syria, Qatar is facing Saudi Arabia on Sunday, January 12 at 1:15pm and Japan on Wednesday, January 15 at 4:15pm.