Kathmandu, Sept. 24 -- The South Asian Football Federation initiated an underage tournament in the men's category in 2011 with the SAFF U16 Championship, which was hosted at Nepal's Dasharath Stadium.

Since then, SAFF has organised the U16 Championship thrice (2013, 2015 and 2023), the U15 Championship thrice (2017, 2018 and 2019) and the U17 Championship twice (2022 and 2024). The U17 tournament is seeing its third edition underway in Colombo, Sri Lanka; it is the 10th edition of SAFF's underage tournament in the men's category.

Nepal and India have been two consistent participants in all 10 editions, having faced each other at least once in each of them. The two teams have confronted each other 12 times in the past nine editions, with...