AIFF Media Team

India U-16 National Team, under the tutelage of Bibiano Fernandes, qualified to the AFC U16 Championship which will be held in Malaysia next year. Meanwhile, this will be our youngsters' third-time participation in last four attempts.

Punjab-born prolific attacker Vikram led the team who, in the process, beat Palestine 3-0 in their first outing before squaring it off with hosts Nepal (2-2) and defending champions Iraq (0-0) and eventually snatched the ticket to Malaysia as one of the best runners-up across the 10 groups.

Bibiano's boys hit the right chord at the right moment having snatched an important win against Palestine in their first go. Givson opened the scoring from an impeccably-taken free-kick in the second -half followed by Bekey and Vikram.

Hosts Nepal gave our boys a tough time in the next match, having shared the pie in our second match of the qualification round.

A game which saw four goals in the final 14 minutes of the match, failed to find a winner eventually. After conceding the first goal in the 76th minute, India came back strongly riding on a terrific brace from Super-sub Harpreet (83', 86') only to concede the lead within a minute which finally, resulted in a 2-2 draw.

In the last throw of dice against the defending champions Iraq, the boys clad in Blue showed their grit and mettle to churn out a goalless stalemate, which paved their path to qualify to the final round where they will lock their horns with other 15 superpowers from the continent.

India finished their campaign with 5 points from 3 matches, 2 points shy of the group-toppers Iraq.

The AFC U16 Championship is scheduled to kick-off on September 20, 2018 and it'll run until October 7, 2018.