Seychelles U20

Roche Caiman sits on reclaimed land at the edge of Victoria, and Stade Linité, the ground built there, is where Seychelles sends its youth sides to play. Ten thousand people fit inside it, more than the U20 team has ever needed to fill for a home fixture that mattered continentally, but the stadium belongs to the wider national programme and the Under-20s use it because that is where Seychellois football gathers.

The Seychelles Football Federation, which oversees the age-group side, dates to 1941, when it was founded as the Seychelles Football Association; it took its current name in 1980. The U20s carry the senior team's nickname, The Pirates, and wear the same yellow shirts, green shorts and blue socks, though the badge is the only thing borrowed that has done the side any favours.

On the pitch, the record is one long absence. Seychelles has entered the COSAFA Under-20 Youth Championship more than a dozen times since 2000 and has never got past the group stage. The 2022 tournament was typical: three matches in Group B, three defeats, no points, a 1–8 loss to Angola among them. Three years earlier, in Group C, the story was the same — Angola, Eswatini and Mozambique all won, and Seychelles finished bottom with nothing to show. The team sat out the 2024 edition altogether. Ralph Jean-Louis was in charge of the side in 2022, taking a squad up against COSAFA opposition that has consistently had more depth to call on.

None of that has changed what the federation asks of the age group: turn up, play at Stade Linité when a home date falls, and send players through toward the senior Pirates in Victoria, the small capital that fields them.