TEHRAN – Iran defeated Turkmenistan 3-0 at the 2024 CAFA U20 Championship opener Sunday night.

Yousef Mazraeh, Alireza Homaeifard and Reza Ghandipour were on target for Hossein Abdi’s team.

The Persians will then meet Uzbekistan in Group B on Tuesday.

Group A consists of Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Kyrgyzstan.

The 2024 CAFA U20 Championship is the upcoming 2nd edition of the Championship, the international youth football championship organized by Central Asian Football Association for the men's under-20 national teams of Central Asia.

 Kyrgyzstan hosts the tournament from July 5 to 12.

A total of six teams play in the tournament, with players born on or after 1 January 2004 eligible to participate. It will be the first CAFA tournament to implement video assistant referees (VAR).

Uzbekistan are the defending champions being crowned champions of the inaugural edition.