Uzbekistan U17 team celebrates winning the Asian Championship - Photo: AFC
In just seven years, Uzbekistan has swept all the youth football titles in Asia.
Uzbekistan shatters Middle Eastern illusions.
Those titles include the 2018 AFC U23 Championship, the 2023 AFC U20 Championship, and most recently, the 2025 AFC U17 Championship. Not only did Uzbekistan win the championships, but they also displayed incredible form throughout the tournaments.
In the group stage, they convincingly defeated Thailand, China, and Saudi Arabia. In the knockout rounds, the Uzbekistan U17 team won convincingly against UAE (3-1) and North Korea (3-0), before causing a shock in the final. Why the shock? Because Uzbekistan had two players sent off in the first half, yet Saudi Arabia could only endure the onslaught. It's worth noting that Saudi Arabia was the host nation of the tournament.
Moreover, this is the generation of players that Saudi Arabia has high hopes for in the future, as the Middle Eastern nation will host the 2034 World Cup. It is estimated that the current Saudi Arabian U17 team will play a key role when the national team enters the World Cup in nine years' time.
Saudi Arabian football has done almost everything to serve its 10-year plan. From building top-tier academies and spending money to bring in a host of superstars to upgrade the national league, to actively expanding relationships through European clubs (such as the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund's acquisition of Newcastle United), Saudi Arabia is being compared to Manchester City and PSG of Asian football today.
Besides Saudi Arabia, two other Middle Eastern powerhouses, the UAE and Qatar, also made similar efforts, even pushing ahead with naturalizing players. But in the end, they all had to bow down to Uzbekistan.
Rising to prominence through technology.
Before facing Saudi Arabia, both UAE and Qatar had already been defeated by Uzbekistan at the national team level. In the World Cup qualifiers, Uzbekistan surpassed UAE and Qatar to comfortably secure second place behind Iran in Group A.
Uzbekistan only needs one more win to overtake the two Middle Eastern giants and secure qualification. Meanwhile, in Group C, Saudi Arabia faces the risk of losing everything if they lose their last two matches. That would be a heavy blow to Saudi Arabia's football ambitions.
Japan, South Korea, Iran, and Saudi Arabia (excluding Australia) are the four teams that have dominated Asian football competitions for the past two decades. The last time a team from this group knocked out a World Cup qualifying spot was in the 2010 World Cup, when North Korea beat Iran and Saudi Arabia to secure their place.
U17 Saudi Arabia and U17 Iran in the final of the 2025 AFC U17 Championship - Photo: AFC
FIFA's expansion of the World Cup has created opportunities for other Asian footballing nations to rise and change the monotonous order that has lasted for the past two decades. It was thought that the Middle East, with its financial power, would dominate, but Uzbekistan is now surging ahead.
There have been many analyses of Uzbekistan's success, including from a sports science perspective. More than 10 years ago, Rustam Mukhamedov, a scientist at the Institute of Organic Biochemistry of Uzbekistan, dedicated himself to studying the genes of Uzbekistan's champion athletes.
The results of this research were applied by the Uzbek government to screen, identify, and provide appropriate advice to talented young athletes. As a result, after a decade, football and many other sports in Uzbekistan have continuously produced generations of talented young athletes.
Gene screening technology may just be one of many technological steps that Uzbek sports are adopting, learning from Russia, to improve their training methods. Accordingly, they utilize their existing resources and focus on enhancing training capabilities. This is completely different from the trend of attracting superstars in the hope of taking shortcuts, as seen in Middle Eastern football.
Source: https://tuoitre.vn/doi-moi-quyen-luc-bong-da-chau-a-20250422091746896.htm
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