2020 AFC U-19 Championship

2020 AFC U-19 Championship
Tournament details
Host country	Uzbekistan
Dates	14–31 October
Teams	16 (from 1 confederation)
Venue(s)	4 (in 3 host cities)

The 2020 AFC U-19 Championship will be the 41st edition of the AFC U-19 Championship, the biennial international youth football championship organised by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) for the men's under-19 national teams of Asia. It will take place in Uzbekistan, which was appointed as the host by the AFC on 17 September 2019,[1] between 14 and 31 October 2020.[2]

A total of 16 teams will play in the tournament. The top four teams of the tournament will qualify for the 2021 FIFA U-20 World Cup in Indonesia as the AFC representatives, besides Indonesia who qualified automatically as the World Cup hosts. If Indonesia are among the top four teams, three play-off matches will be played to decide the fifth-placed team which also qualify for the 2021 FIFA U-20 World Cup.

This edition will be the last to be played as an under-19 tournament, as the AFC have proposed switching the tournament from under-19 to under-20 starting from 2023.[3]

Saudi Arabia are the defending champions.

Qualification

Qualification matches were played in November 2019.[4][5] Uzbekistan also participated in the qualifiers, even though they had already qualified automatically as hosts.

Qualified teams

The following 16 teams qualified for the final tournament.[6]

Team	Qualified as	Appearance	Previous best performance
Uzbekistan	Hosts	8th	Runners-up (2008)
Iraq	Group A winners	18th	Champions (1975, 1977, 1978, 1988, 2000)
Qatar	Group B winners	15th	Champions (2014)
Tajikistan	Group C winners	5th	Quarter-finals (2016, 2018)
Iran	Group D winners	21st	Champions (1973, 1974, 1975, 1976)
Bahrain	Group E winners	10th	Runners-up (1986)
Saudi Arabia	Group F winners	15th	Champions (1986, 1992, 2018)
Malaysia	Group G winners	24th	Runners-up (1959, 1960, 1968)
Australia	Group H winners	8th	Runners-up (2010)
South Korea	Group I winners	39th	Champions (1959, 1960, 1963, 1978, 1980, 1982, 1990, 1996, 1998, 2002, 2004, 2012)
Japan	Group J winners	38th	Champions (2016)
Indonesia	Group K winners	18th	Champions (1961)
Laos	1st best runners-up	6th	Quarter-finals (1970)
Vietnam	2nd best runners-up	20th[note 1]	Semi-finals (2016)
Yemen	3rd best runners-up	7th	Group stage (1978, 2004, 2008, 2010, 2014, 2016)
Cambodia	5th best runners-up	4th	Group stage (1963, 1972, 1974)

Venues

The tournament will be played in four venues:

Tashkent		Namangan
Bunyodkor Stadium	Lokomotiv Stadium	Navbahor Central Stadium
Capacity: 34,000	Capacity: 8,000	Capacity: 22,500

Olmaliq	Tashkent Olmaliq Namangan
AGMK Stadium
Capacity: 12,000

Draw

The draw of the final tournament was held on 18 June 2020, 16:30 MYT (UTC+8), at the AFC House in Kuala Lumpur.[8][9] The 16 teams were drawn into four groups of four teams, with the teams seeded according to their performance in the 2018 AFC U-19 Championship final tournament and qualification, with the hosts Uzbekistan automatically seeded and assigned to Position A1 in the draw.

Pot 1	Pot 2	Pot 3	Pot 4
Uzbekistan (hosts) Saudi Arabia South Korea Qatar	Japan Tajikistan Australia Indonesia	Malaysia Iraq Vietnam Cambodia	Iran Yemen Bahrain Laos

Squads

Players born on or after 1 January 2001 are eligible to compete in the tournament. Each team can register a maximum of 23 players (minimum three of whom must be goalkeepers).[10]

Group stage

The top two teams of each group advance to the quarter-finals.

Tiebreakers

Teams are ranked according to points (3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 points for a loss), and if tied on points, the following tiebreaking criteria are applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings (Regulations Article 9.3):[10]

Points in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
Goal difference in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
Goals scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
If more than two teams are tied, and after applying all head-to-head criteria above, a subset of teams are still tied, all head-to-head criteria above are reapplied exclusively to this subset of teams;
Goal difference in all group matches;
Goals scored in all group matches;
Penalty shoot-out if only two teams are tied and they met in the last round of the group;
Disciplinary points (yellow card = 1 point, red card as a result of two yellow cards = 3 points, direct red card = 3 points, yellow card followed by direct red card = 4 points);
Drawing of lots.

All times are local, UZT (UTC+5).[11]

Schedule
Matchday	Dates	Matches
Matchday 1	14–16 October 2020	1 v 4, 2 v 3
Matchday 2	17–19 October 2020	4 v 2, 3 v 1
Matchday 3	20–22 October 2020	1 v 2, 3 v 4

Group A

Pos	Team	Qualification
1	Uzbekistan (H)	Knockout stage
2	Indonesia	Knockout stage
3	Cambodia
4	Iran

First match(es) will be played on 14 October 2020. Source: AFC
Rules for classification: Group stage tiebreakers
(H) Host.

14 October 2020