Ajman U23

The name that keeps coming up around Ajman's reserve side is Al Ain, the club that has taken the U23 title while Ajman U23 has spent the past few seasons circling the top of the table without reaching it. In 2025/26 Ajman U23 finished third with 44 points, behind Al Ain and Sharjah, the kind of result that has become a pattern rather than an exception for a team that plays in the Arabian Gulf Reserve League — the professional competition for Under-23 squads run alongside the UAE Premier League, distinct from the youth academies below it.

The squad carries the Ajman Club badge rather than one of its own, and the club it feeds traces back to a merger of three sides, Al Shoala, Al Hilal and Al Nasr, in 1974. That history sits in the background here; what defines the U23s is the orange shirt, the colour behind the nickname The Oranges, worn on the same pitch the first team uses at Ajman Stadium on Sheikh Khalifa Street.

The fixture that sharpens the season is against Shabab Al Ahli. The record between the two sides runs heavily one way — 29 wins to 3 for Shabab Al Ahli across 38 meetings — yet the match still carries weight in the table, and Sharjah remain the other side Ajman U23 measure themselves against near the top.

For now the task stays the same one it has been for several seasons: turn a consistent mid-to-upper-table finish into the title that has so far gone elsewhere.