Uzbekistan U18

Training runs at the National Football Centre in the Yuqori Chirchiq district outside Tashkent, but when the under-18s need a proper pitch for a fixture, they travel into the city to Pakhtakor Central Stadium. It is borrowed space, shared with older, better-known sides, and that says something about where an under-18 side sits in Uzbek football: a staging post rather than a destination.

The team belongs to the Uzbekistan Football Association, a body that dates back to 1946 and joined FIFA in 1994, long before this particular age group existed as a fixture on the calendar. Its own honours list is thin next to the under-20s, who took both the AFC U-20 Asian Cup and the CAFA U-20 Championship in 2023, and next to the under-19s, runners-up at the 2008 AFC U-19 Championship. The under-18s are where those results begin, not where they are collected.

What the age group has produced is players who move on. Abdukodir Khusanov passed through the under-17s, under-19s and under-20s on his way up, and Eldor Shomurodov's path ran through the under-19s and under-20s as well. Jamoliddin Rakhmatullaev took charge of the side in July 2025, succeeding Askar Khalmuratov, and has since sent the team into friendlies against England, Belarus, Russia and Montenegro at the same age level, along with a trip to Japan for the SBS International Cup.

None of that has yet produced a title at this level. The team keeps returning to Tashkent between matches, to the training centre at Yuqori Chirchiq and, on the days that matter, to the stands at Pakhtakor Central Stadium, standing in for a ground of its own.