2020 AFC U-16 Championship
The 2020 AFC U-16 Championship will be the 19th edition of the AFC U-16 Championship, the biennial international youth football championship organised by the Asian Football Confederation for the men's under-16 national teams of Asia. It will take place in Bahrain, which was appointed as the host by the AFC on 17 September 2019, between 25 November and 12 December 2020, postponed from the original dates between 16 September and 3 October 2020.
A total of 16 teams will play in the tournament. The top four teams of the tournament will qualify for the 2021 FIFA U-17 World Cup in Peru as the AFC representatives.
This edition will be the last to be played as an under-16 tournament, as the AFC have proposed switching the tournament from under-16 to under-17 starting from 2023.
Japan are the defending champions.
Qualification
Qualifying was played from 14 – 22 September 2019. Bahrain 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.Team | Qualified as | Appearance | Previous best performance |
8th | |||
4th | |||
9th | |||
12th | ' | ||
11th | ' | ||
11th | ' | ||
8th | |||
15th | ' | ||
7th | |||
12th | ' | ||
16th | ' | ||
15th | ' | ||
6th | |||
7th | |||
10th | ' | ||
11th |
Venues
The tournament will be played in three venues:Riffa | Isa Town | Muharraq | |
Bahrain National Stadium | Khalifa Sports City Stadium | Sheikh Ali Bin Mohammed Al Khalifa Stadium | |
Capacity: 30,000 | Capacity: 20,000 | Capacity: 20,000 | |
Draw
The draw of the final tournament was held on 18 June 2020, 14:30 MYT, at the AFC House in Kuala Lumpur. The 16 teams were drawn into four groups of four teams. The teams were seeded according to their performance in the 2018 AFC U-16 Championship final tournament and qualification, with the hosts Bahrain automatically seeded and assigned to Position A1 in the draw.Pot [|1] | Pot 2 | Pot 3 | Pot 4 |
Squads
Players born on or after 1 January 2004 are eligible to compete in the tournament. Each team can register a maximum of 23 players.Group stage
The top two teams of each group advance to the quarter-finals.;Tiebreakers
Teams are ranked according to points, and if tied on points, the following tiebreaking criteria are applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings :
- 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 ;
- Drawing of lots.
Matchday | Dates | Matches |
Matchday 1 | 25–27 November 2020 | 1 v 4, 2 v 3 |
Matchday 2 | 28–30 November 2020 | 4 v 2, 3 v 1 |
Matchday 3 | 1–3 December 2020 | 1 v 2, 3 v 4 |
Group A
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Group B
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Group C
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Group D
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Knockout stage
In the knockout stage, penalty shoot-out is used to decide the winner if necessary.Bracket
Quarter-finals
The winners will qualify for 2021 FIFA U-17 World Cup.----
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Semi-finals
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Winners
Awards
Goalscorers
Qualified teams for FIFA U-17 World Cup
The following four teams from AFC qualify for the 2021 FIFA U-17 World Cup.Team | Qualified on | Previous appearances in FIFA U-17 World Cup1 |