For Myanmar's fledgling soccer squad, it doesn't get much better than this.
The next month will be the biggest in Myanmar's football history. The national team starts qualification for the 2018 World Cup on June 11, but what's really getting the country's fans excited is the under-20 team's first appearance in that tournament on Saturday against the United States in New Zealand.
''People have been waiting to play at a World Cup for a long time,'' Myanmar national team coach Radojko Avramovic told The Associated Press. ''It's all over the media.''
So important is the youth tournament that Avramovic, a Serbian, is unable to pick some talented young players for the senior team's World Cup qualifiers against Laos on June 11 and South Korea five days later.