Malaysia U20

The fixture that raises the temperature fastest is the one against Indonesia; Thailand runs it a close second. The side traces its record back to 1959, when Malaya travelled to the first AFC Youth Championship and lost the final after opening the tournament with a 12–0 win over Sri Lanka. That runners-up finish repeated in 1960 and again in 1968, and the title itself has never been won at this level, though a third-place finish followed in 1965 and a place at the 1997 FIFA World Youth Championship group stage marked the closest brush with the global stage.

Regionally the record reads better: the ASEAN U-19 Boys' Championship went to Malaysia in 2018 and 2022, and the Lion City Cup in 2005. Home matches are played in front of a Bukit Jalil crowd that can fill more than 87,000 seats.

It was fixed in place by the Harimau Muda Project, FAM's 2007 attempt to give its junior sides regular football by entering them directly into the domestic league system as Harimau Muda A, B and C. The project folded in 2015, but the name stayed attached to the youth team long after the clubs it created were wound down.

Among those who passed through this group before establishing themselves higher up, Safawi Rasid is the one most commonly pointed to: a Young Tiger who went on to become a fixture for the senior national side.