10 Feb 2015
Auckland, 10 February 2015. The offical draw of the FIFA U-20 World Cup took place on Wednesday in Auckland's SKYCITY Convention Centre. Qatar was drawn in Group C and will face Colombia, Portugal and CAF 4, a country which will be known after the end of the African U-20 Championship in Senegal, in the group stage of the upcoming global showpiece. Assim Omer A Madibo, midfielder of Qatar's U-20 national team, heard about the opponents in Belek (Turkey), where he is currently preparing with his Austrian club LASK Linz for the second half of the season: "It is a very challenging group, but, of course, we are up to the challenge and we will give our best in every game. Portugal und Colombia are big football nations with strong national teams, but we also have our qualities, what we have shown at last year's AFC Championship.
If we are confident, believe in ourself and work hard we will be able to compete for a spot in the knock-out stage." Fellow Aspire Academy student Akram Afif, who is successfully playing for KAS Eupen in Belgium, said: "It's the World Cup, so we knew before the draw that there are no easy opponents. I think we are in an intersting group, the countries are from different continents and so the style of every team will be different one too. I think everyone of us is already looking forward to this competition." The FIFA U-20 World Cup takes place in New Zealand between March 30 and June 20 2015 and the games of Qatar in the group stage will be played in Hamilton. The first match of Qatar will be against Colombia.