New Delhi, Oct 19 (IANS)Indian women’s football is celebrating its best year yet. For the first time, all three national teams – senior, U20, and U17 – have qualified for the 2025 AFC Women’s Asian Cup. This marks a historic hat-trick, as all three teams will compete against Asia’s top sides next year.

The India U17s are the latest among these to secure their tickets to the AFC U17 Women’s Asian Cup China 2026, winning both their matches against Kyrgyz Republic and Uzbekistan by 2-1 in Bishkek earlier this week.

Head coach Joakim Alexandersson, who guided the U17s to their first-ever successful qualification campaign at this age group, feels that it is now time to build onwards from what has been achieved. “We joked after the match that the job is done for now, but we only look to move forward from here. It was good to see the character that they showed, especially since many of these girls were a bit nervous as they hadn’t experienced matches like these before.

The success of the U17s was squarely down to the match experience, albeit at a domestic level, that the girls garnered with the Indian Arrows Women Juniors in last season’s Indian Women’s League 2 which had more than half of the squad that featured in the Asian qualifiers.

“The Arrows project was very important because I got to know most of the players even better, and they were able to adapt to my playing style – how we defend, how we build up, and how I speak to them,” said Alexandersson. “It also gave them a chance to train together consistently, and play against senior players in IWL 2, which means a lot for their development.”

Alexandersson, who was also the head coach of the India U20 women’s team that qualified for the AFC U20 Women’s Asian Cup Thailand 2026 earlier this year in Myanmar, feels that this kind of success across age groups only helps put football on the radar, especially for young girls.

“It definitely means a lot – especially for women’s football, but also for Indian football overall. Hopefully, this encourages more girls to start training earlier and build greater interest in the game among young players. That’s very important for the future,” he said.

The senior women’s team, who kicked off this qualifying spree by successfully navigating the AFC Women’s Asian Cup Australia 2026 Qualifiers in Thailand, are all set to play the Tri-Nation Women’s International Friendlies in Shillong, where they will face IR Iran (October 21) and Nepal (October 27), both matches kicking off at 18:00 IST. The games will be streamed live on FIFA+.

With the two junior teams also having successful qualification campaigns, Blue Tigresses’ head coach Crispin Chettri is looking ahead to the pipeline of youngsters for the future.

“I feel the inclusion of Indian Arrows in IWL 2 helped a lot in grooming the U17 players. They got game time and played with some good teams,” said Chettri. “So now it is important for us to nurture this talent and ensure a good supply line from the U17s to U20s, and on to the senior team. As coaches, we not only have quantity, but also a large pool of quality players to choose from.”

Looking to build his team for the Asian Cup in Australia next year, Chettri is already looking at a number of junior players as potential candidates for his senior squad.

“It’s always helpful to play against good teams, as to be your best, you need to play against the best. We already have some U20 players in the senior team, and maybe we can test out a few U17s at this level and see where they stand,” he said.

–IANS

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