Sri Lanka U20

Youth football in Sri Lanka has run through the Football Federation of Sri Lanka since its founding in 1939, and when the federation began sending a representative under-20 side abroad, the team's first international outing came at the 1959 AFC Youth Championship, where it lost 0–12 to Malaysia. The side, nicknamed the Golden Army along with its senior counterpart, has taken part in the AFC youth tournament eight times since, and its best showing anywhere near the top came early — a quarter-final finish in 1967.

Regional football has proved harder to crack. In thirteen games at the SAFF U-20 Championship, Sri Lanka have managed a single win and a single draw, exiting at the group stage more often than not. The one bright result on the honours list arrived far from South Asia, at the 2014 Lusofonia Games, where the team took bronze.

The closest thing to a rivalry runs against India, sharpened by the senior team's 1–0 win over them in the 1995 SAARC Gold Cup final — a result the age-group sides have never quite matched, though the fixture still carries weight whenever the two meet.

Matches are played at the Sugathadasa Stadium in Colombo, which holds up to 25,000.