Brunei U20

Football arrived late as an organised game for Brunei's youngest players, and when the country's federation began sending age-group sides abroad, it was this one that carried the name into Manila for the 1970 AFC Youth Championship, then still run as an under-21 event. The result there, a 1–6 defeat to Hong Kong, set the pattern for much of what followed: entry, not advancement.

Between 1972 and 1978 the side, now nicknamed the Young Wasps, reached the group stage of the tournament four times, which remains as far as it has ever gone. There was no final and no title in any of those years. The 1974 edition in Thailand showed the gap plainly: last in Group D without a point, beaten 0–7 by the hosts, 1–7 by Japan and 0–3 by Chinese Taipei. Decades on, qualifying campaigns have looked much the same or worse; in September 2024, in the group stage for the 2025 AFC U-20 Asian Cup, Brunei lost 0–15 to Iraq, 0–13 to Thailand and 0–4 to the Philippines.

Because the age-group side is put together for each tournament rather than kept running year-round, it has never built the kind of settled rivalry that fixtures against Malaysia or Singapore might otherwise have produced; matches against stronger neighbours have tended to be one-sided rather than contested. The team trains and plays at the Hassanal Bolkiah National Stadium in Bandar Seri Begawan, in the yellow, white and black associated with the national colours.

Hakeme Yazid Said is the name most attached to this level of the national set-up, a senior international who came through playing in the under-20 qualifiers before establishing himself in the full team.