The 2020 AFC U-19 Championship would have been 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 was scheduled to take place in Uzbekistan, who had been appointed as the host by the AFC on 17 September 2019.[2] It was originally scheduled to run between 14 and 31 October 2020,[3] but was postponed twice due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[4][5]
The AFC announced the cancellation of the tournament on 25 January 2021, leaving the hosting rights for the 2023 AFC U-20 Asian Cup with Uzbekistan.[6]
Originally, the top four teams of the tournament would have qualified for the 2021 FIFA U-20 World Cup in Indonesia as the AFC representatives, plus Indonesia who qualified automatically as the World Cup hosts. Due to the ongoing COVID-19 Pandemic, the 2021 U-20 World Cup was also cancelled, with hosting rights for the 2023 FIFA U-20 World Cup still kept with Indonesia.[7]
This edition was expected to 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.[8]
Qualification matches were played in November 2019.[9][10] 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.[11]
The draw of the final tournament was held on 18 June 2020, 16:30 MYT (UTC+8), at the AFC House in Kuala Lumpur.[13][14] 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.
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).[15]
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):[15]
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);
^Between 1959 and 1974 Vietnam competed at AFC tournaments as South Vietnam. A separate North Vietnam state did not join FIFA and they mostly played against other communist and communist-sympathising countries.[12] The team's total appearances included eleven appearances as the .
Uzbekistan
Iraq
Qatar
Tajikistan
Iran
Bahrain
Saudi Arabia
Malaysia
Australia
South Korea
Japan
Indonesia
Laos
Vietnam
Yemen
Cambodia
