El Salvador made history by qualifying for their first ever FIFA U-17 World Cup
The medium-term goal is for the senior team to once again qualify for the World Cup
FIFA is contributing to these achievements with its FIFA Forward and Talent Programmes
16 February 2025 has already gone down as a key date in El Salvador’s football history books. On that day, the national U-17 side secured their place at the FIFA U-17 World Cup Qatar 2025™ after beating Jamaica and coming first in their group in the Concacaf qualifiers.
“It’s a great achievement and qualifying for the first time ever for a U-17 World Cup is very satisfying for us. It’s a great feeling for the Association and for the Salvadoran people. Something historic,” Rolando González, president of the Regularisation Committee of the Salvadoran Football Federation (FESFUT), told Inside FIFA of the result of many years of hard work.
The World Cup in Qatar will be the first time that El Salvador will play in a youth U-17 tournament. Their youngest side to play in a tournament of such magnitude was when their U-20 team qualified for the FIFA U-20 World Cup Turkey 2013™. It has been 12 years of hard work.
“When I arrived at the Association, the first thing I did was analyse the whole setup from top to bottom. We placed a lot of emphasis on looking after the team and the players,” González said. “We hired psychologists and nutritionists, we arranged friendlies for the players and we scouted players in the USA, where there are many Salvadorans, as well as on home soil in order to select the best of the bunch. We treat them like professionals.
“We need to work with the youth teams to bring the younger players on and allow them to develop. It must be a bottom-up approach, so that these teams will eventually provide players for the U-20, U-21, Olympic and senior teams. That’s the secret to football development.”
“We’re implementing the FIFA Talent Development Programme again, to find these young players, dividing the country into four parts where, thanks to our coaches, we can build teams with the best players from each place. González continued.
“In addition, thanks to the FIFA Forward Programme we can implement the 26 programmes that we created with the help of the Government of El Salvador for the development of youth football.”
The FIFA Forward Programme has already played a key role in the country with the inauguration of Villa Selecta – a residence for the Salvadoran national teams – an event that was attended by FIFA President Gianni Infantino. There is now a complex that the U-17 team has been able to benefit from during their preparations for the FIFA U-17 World Cup Qatar 2025™.
This World Cup, which will take place between 3 and 27 November, will be the most important in the history of the competition to date. For the first time, it will feature 48 teams and from this year onwards, it will be played annually, in accordance with Goal 4 of the Strategic Objectives for the Global Game: 2023-2027: to organise more youth competitions for different age groups.
“Ensuring players compete at a young age is very important, it’s how they start to develop as players. It will help us to have stronger and more competitive teams going forward.”
“I think Gianni Infantino made an excellent decision,” González said. “Ensuring players compete at a young age is very important, it’s how they start to develop as players. It will help us to have stronger and more competitive teams going forward.”
Rafael Inojosa is the captain of the Salvadoran U-17 side. Inside FIFA also had the opportunity to speak to the youngster, who did not hesitate to wax lyrical about their achievement.
“We’re very proud because it’s the first time in our history that the U-17s have qualified for a World Cup. At first, I couldn’t really process what had just happened. I was crying, I was happy, I saw all my teammates crying as well. We were on cloud nine,” he said, referring to the moment when the referee blew the final whistle in their match, a 2-1 win over Jamaica.
“It was a dream come true for us, but now we’re focused on giving a good account of ourselves at the World Cup and hopefully motivating the younger generations in El Salvador.”
The U-17s will be hoping to make a name for themselves in Qatar. “We want to make it past the first round,” he said, recalling the generations that played in the 1970 and 1982 FIFA World Cups, before discussing what it would be like to achieve a similar feat.
“Having the opportunity to play at a World Cup is really inspiring for young people in El Salvador. It’s important that those who watch us believe that they can also achieve similar things,” he said, ending with a resounding message for Salvadoran football.
“We mustn’t stop here. We’re the first team to play in a U-17 World Cup, but we certainly don’t want to be the last. We want other generations to follow in our footsteps. We’ve paved the way for future generations and I’m sure our younger teams will qualify again soon.”
The medium-term goal is for the senior team to once again qualify for the World Cup. González is ambitious. “We’ve just changed our coach. We’ve brought in Hernán ‘Bolillo’ Gómez, who is a very experienced coach. He’s signed a contract with us until 2030, but we’re fully focused on the short term and on the FIFA World Cup 26™,” he pointed out.
El Salvador got their qualifying campaign off to a great start with a victory and a draw from their opening two games in Group F, and González is confident there is more to come
“El Salvador is ready to compete on the world stage in the future,” he added. “Football is the biggest sport in the country, so developing our younger players is of utmost importance to the Association. The U-17 side has given the Salvadoran people a lot of encouragement and they’re getting behind the Association again and believing in the project and work they’re doing behind the scenes.”