The youth national team has set up camp in Singapore to prepare for the SAFF U-20 Championship, which begins in the Maldives on the 23rd of this month. The team will spend approximately one week in Singapore.
During this period, two friendly matches are scheduled to be played against that country’s U-19 national team.
The first match will be played on Sunday at the Choa Chu Kang Stadium. The second match will be played next Tuesday at the stadium. These two matches against the Maldives are also important training matches for Singapore.
Singapore’s U-19 team is preparing for the ASEAN U-19 Boys' Championship, which will be held in Indonesia from June 1–14.
In the Youth SAFF Championship, the Maldivian team will be guided by the senior national team’s head coach, István Urbányi. After taking over as the Maldives' Technical Director and senior national team coach in January, Urbányi’s first challenge under his coaching will be the match played against Singapore on Sunday. This is the third time Urbányi is working as the coach of the Maldives.
The Maldivian team began preparing for the SAFF U-20 Championship with a trial open to players of that age group. More than 150 players attended the trial conducted in January.
In the tournament where all seven member nations of SAFF will compete, the Maldives was placed in Group A along with Sri Lanka, Bhutan, and Nepal. Group B consists of the defending champions India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. The final match of the tournament will be played on the third of next month.
