2019 Africa U-20 Cup of Nations


The 2019 Africa U-20 Cup of Nations was the 15th edition of the Africa U-20 Cup of Nations, the biennial international youth football tournament organized by the Confederation of African Football for players aged 20 and below. In May 2015, it was decided that the tournament would be hosted by Niger.
The top four teams of the tournament qualified for the 2019 FIFA U-20 World Cup in Poland as the CAF representatives. Mali won their first title, while the other qualified teams which finished second to fourth were Senegal, South Africa and Nigeria. Defending champions Zambia failed to qualify.

Qualification

The qualifiers were played between 30 March and 12 August 2018. At the end of the qualification phase, seven teams joined the hosts Niger.

Player eligibility

Players born 1 January 1999 or later are eligible to participate in the competition.

Qualified teams

The following eights teams qualified for the final tournament.
Note: All appearance statistics count only those since the introduction of final tournament in 1991.
TeamAppearancePrevious best performance
1st
3rd
2nd
11th
12th
11th
5th
8th

Venues

The matches were played in two venues:

NiameyMaradi
Stade Général Seyni KountchéStade de Maradi
Capacity: 35,000Capacity: 15,000

Squads

Each squad can contain a maximum of 21 players.

Draw

The draw of the final tournament was held on 13 December 2018, 21:00 WAT, at the Centre Technique de La Fenifoot in Niamey. The eight teams were drawn into two groups of four teams. The hosts Niger were seeded in Group A and allocated to position A1, while 2017 runners-up Senegal were seeded in Group B and allocated to position B1. The remaining six teams were seeded based on their results in the 2017 Africa U-20 Cup of Nations, and drawn to any of the remaining three positions in each group.
SeedsPot [|1]Pot 2

  • Match officials

    A total of 12 referees and 12 assistant referees were appointed for the tournament.
    Referees
    Assistant Referees
    The top two teams of each group advance to the semi-finals and qualify for the 2019 FIFA U-20 World Cup.
    ;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 :
    1. Points in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
    2. Goal difference in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
    3. Goals scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
    4. 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;
    5. Goal difference in all group matches;
    6. Goals scored in all group matches;
    7. Drawing of lots.
    All times are local, WAT.

    Group A

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    Group B

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    Knockout stage

    In the knockout stage, extra time and penalty shoot-out are used to decide the winner if necessary, except for the third place match where penalty shoot-out is used to decide the winner if necessary.

    Bracket

    Semi-finals

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    Third place match

    Final

    Winners

    Goalscorers

    ;3 goals
    ;2 goals
    ;1 goal
    ;1 own goal
    ;Top scorer
    ;Player of the tournament
    ;Fair Play Award

    Qualified teams for FIFA U-20 World Cup

    The following four teams from CAF qualified for the 2019 FIFA U-20 World Cup.
    TeamQualified onPrevious appearances in FIFA U-20 World Cup1
    6 2 2019
    8 2 2019
    8 2 2019
    9 2 20196