Bangladesh Under-20 women's football team will fly off to Laos Saturday to compete in the qualifying round of the AFC U-20 Women's Asian Cup, beginning on August 6 at New Laos National Stadium in Vientiane.
The SAFF U-20 women's champions, Bangladesh, drawn in Group H of the continental youth meet along with formidable South Korea, Timor Leste and hosts Laos, are hoping to qualify for the final round.
Bangladesh will start their campaign taking on hosts Laos on August 6, before facing Timor-Leste on August 8 and South Korea two days later.
Addressing the pre-tour press conference at BFF House Thursday, Bangladesh captain Afeida Khandakar said: "We are going to Laos to qualify (for the final round) and display good football there.”
Bangladesh head coach Peter Butler stated: "In our group, South Korea are a very strong team, so our match with hosts Laos is very important, we want to go ahead after beating Laos in the opening match."
Bangladesh Football Federation and Asian Football Confederation executive committee member and chairman of the BFF’s committee for women's football, Mahfuza Akter Kiron was also present on the occasion.
Bangladesh will reportedly send to Laos the same squad that triumphed in the SAFF U-20 Women's Championship at home recently.
Thirty three teams, split into eight groups, will compete in the first phase of the tournament.
Later, eight group champions and the best three runner up teams will play in the 12-team final round where hosts Thailand lie in wait.
The final round of the biennial international youth football championship, organised by the AFC for the women's U-20 national teams of Asia, is scheduled to be held in Thailand from April 1-18 next year.
North Korea are the defending champions.
The top four teams of the tournament will qualify for the 2026 FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup to be held in Poland.
