Uzbekistan returned to the Girls’s Asian Cup finals for the primary time since 2003 by topping its qualification group in 2025.
The group’s robust kind in qualifying was achieved beneath new coach, Lithuania’s Kotryna Kulbytė, who was appointed in early 2025 to steer the aspect.
Kulbytė’s said purpose is to organize Uzbekistan for the 2026 event and past, together with the 2029 version it’ll host.
Star gamers and group leaders
Uzbekistan’s squad options a number of skilled internationals.
Captain Lyudmila Karachik, 30, is broadly considered an icon of girls’s soccer in Uzbekistan; she led the group again to the Asian Cup after a 23-year absence.
Lyudmila Karachik is the captain of the group and was a central determine in securing qualification for the Asian Cup. (Getty Photos: Darrian Traynor)
Karachik is a ahead for FC Nasaf within the Uzbek league and has scored ceaselessly for the nationwide group.
One other attacking star is Diyorakhon Khabibullaeva, a prolific ahead.
Khabibullaeva was Uzbekistan’s high scorer throughout current Olympic and Asian qualifying rounds and has tallied 27 objectives in simply 25 senior caps.
In purpose, veteran Maftuna Jonimqulova supplies expertise; she earned her first senior cap in 2018 and has featured in each qualifier match, serving to organise the defence.
Different notable gamers embrace ahead Nilufar Kudratova, a document goal-scorer in youth tournaments, and midfielder Sitora Hamidova, who additionally bolsters the group’s attacking choices.
Nilufar Kudratova is a key member of Uzbekistan’s assault. (Getty Photos: Chen Cheng)
Rising the sport in any respect ranges
Domestically, ladies’s soccer in Uzbekistan remains to be growing. The highest tier is a small nationwide league with solely a handful of golf equipment.
FC Sevinch Qarshi has historically dominated the league; in 2025, it secured its seventeenth nationwide title.
However all golf equipment face challenges reminiscent of restricted funding and visibility.
Uzbekistan’s emphasis on youth growth is already bearing fruit. The U17 ladies’s group gained the 2023 CAFA (Central Asian Soccer Affiliation) Championship in Tajikistan, going unbeaten to elevate the trophy.
At house, the Uzbekistan Soccer Affiliation (UFA) has begun strategic applications to spice up ladies’s soccer.
Girls’s soccer is rising in Uzbekistan, with extra funding in youth growth. (Getty Photos: Tolib Kosimov)
In late 2025, the UFA coaches’ council authorized a 2025–2029 plan to increase ladies’ tournaments, strengthen youth scouting by way of extra worldwide friendlies and festivals, and enhance teaching and sports activities science help.
The concept is that every youth age-group group ought to practice usually and compete internationally to organize gamers for the senior group.
The nationwide group can be sponsored by a serious tech firm, which has pledged to assist “increase youth applications” and help ladies’s soccer.
The rising funding displays an official push to boost ladies’s soccer from grassroots ranges.
For example, over 12,000 ladies at the moment practice in youth groups beneath the UFA umbrella.
The Federation’s management, together with FIFA official Ravshan Irmatov, has emphasised constructing infrastructure and coaching for girls’s groups to be on par with the lads’s aspect.
The nation is constructing in direction of internet hosting the 2029 Girls’s Asian Cup. (Equipped: UFA)
Whereas cultural traditions in Uzbekistan have traditionally restricted ladies’s sports activities, these insurance policies sign a brand new period of promotion and acceptance.
Common youth tournaments and nationwide championships intention to alter perceptions and broaden the participant base, guaranteeing a gradual pipeline of expertise to the nationwide squad.
Internet hosting on the horizon
A significant increase on the horizon is Uzbekistan’s award as host of the 2029 AFC Girls’s Asian Cup.
Whereas not formally confirmed, the AFC Girls’s Soccer Committee really helpful Uzbekistan because the 2029 host. This may make it the primary Central Asian nation to stage the event.
That is anticipated to have a huge effect on the event of the ladies’s sport regionally.
Internet hosting duties will drive upgrades to stadiums and coaching amenities and can heighten public curiosity forward of the 2029 event.
In sensible phrases, Uzbekistan can now make investments confidently in long-term applications, understanding there can be a flagship competitors on house soil.
The chance to showcase the game internationally is motivating gamers and officers alike — as Karachik has beforehand stated, taking part in within the Asian Cup finals is an “honour” and an opportunity to show how robust Uzbek ladies’s soccer has turn out to be.
The ladies’s nationwide group solely performed its first worldwide in 1995, and has by no means certified for a World Cup or Olympics.
So achievements reminiscent of qualifying for this Asian Cup are seen as a turning level for the world quantity 49.
The narrative now’s certainly one of regular progress: Uzbekistan is investing in youth and management, aiming to construct on these milestones and set up itself as a rising drive in Asian ladies’s soccer.
Ahmad Muhammadov is a sports activities journalist from Uzbekistan protecting worldwide soccer and producing English-language sports activities content material targeted on Central Asian soccer growth.
