Mauritania U20

No fixture on the calendar carries a name of its own, but when the draw sends Mourabitounes against Senegal U20 or Mali U20 in a regional round, those are the sides Mauritania's youth teams measure themselves against most often, in the absence of anything sharper.

The side plays its qualifiers at the Stade Cheikha Ould Boïdiya, a ground with room for 8,200, though for the bigger nights and for training the federation moves the squad to the much larger Stade Olympique de Nouakchott. They beat Mozambique 2-0, lost the other two, and went out third. A few weeks later the same generation finished fourth in their group at the Arab Cup U-20. That 2021 squad was captained by Mohamed El Abd Sidi Ahmed of FC Nouadhibou, and it also carried Beyatt Lekweiry, who at sixteen was the youngest player at the whole tournament.

Away from African qualifying, the team has turned up at the COTIF Tournament in Spain more than once. In 2018 they beat India U20 3-0 on their way to third in the group; they returned in 2024 to face Brazil, Morocco and Argentina at the same age level.

The crest on the shirt is the senior team's, and the nickname reaches back further still — Mourabitounes, after the Almoravid dynasty, attached to the side since it first took the field at the 1981 Africa U-20 Cup of Nations and went out in the first round.