Yemen U20

Saudi Arabia has become the fixture the Yemen under-20 side measures itself against, and not always kindly. It was Saudi Arabia who beat them 3-1 in the final of the 2025 AGCFF U-20 Gulf Cup, denying a first continental trophy at the last hurdle, and it was Saudi Arabia who had already knocked them out at the semi-final stage of the Arab Cup U-20 in 2022. Oman, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates fill out the list of regional opponents who come up most often, though none carries quite the same sting as the Saudi results.

The team traces its identity to North Yemen, whose youth side made its first international appearance on 6 October 1978, losing 2-0 to Kuwait in Dhaka. That date, not the later unification, is the one the current setup counts from; South Yemen had run its own youth football before then, reaching the quarterfinals of the 1975 AFC Youth Championship, but that history sits apart from the record now kept for the unified team, run by the Yemen Football Association.

Players who have passed through the age-group ranks and into the senior side include Hamza Mahrous, Abdulaziz Masnoum and Qassem Al-Sharafi, part of a pipeline the federation leans on given how rarely the team can call on home advantage. Security conditions in Yemen have pushed most official fixtures to neutral venues abroad, even though the squad still trains and prepares at the 70 Stadium, also known as Al-Sab'een Stadium, in Sana'a. Known to their own supporters as the Yemen Eagles, the players return there between tournaments, to a capital that rarely gets to watch them play.