Abu Dhabi: The UAE will face Kuwait today in the opener of their campaign in the Asian Under-16 Championship in Uzbekistan.

The 16 teams participating in the competition were divided into four groups with Group A featuring hosts Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Jordan and Indonesia; Group B: Iran, Syria, North Korea and Oman; Group C: Japan, Australia, East Timor and Vietnam while Group D consists of : UAE, Kuwait, Iraq and China.

The top two teams of each group reach the second round of the competition which will be contested on a knockout basis with the last four teams in the competition reaching the finals in Mexico.

Badr Saleh, head coach of the UAE team, said: "Our objective is to reach the finals of the 2011 Fifa Under-17 World Cup in Mexico. We realise it will be a tough task to achieve our goal but we have confidence in our players and we have prepared well for the competition."

The UAE have reached the last Fifa Juniors World Cup in Nigeria in 2009 when they won promotion from the last version of the tournament which was also organised in Uzbekistan.

"We are ready to enter the matches," Abdul Rahman Al Haddad, the former international defender and the team's manager, said.

Training camp

"We held a successful training camp in Turkey and played several friendly matches against Japan, Syria and Oman which play like our opponents in the group. We are grateful for the keen follow up of UAE officials to the team and we are sure that our young players are determined to achieve good results."