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.
TeamQualified asAppearancePrevious 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:

RiffaIsa TownMuharraq
Bahrain National StadiumKhalifa Sports City StadiumSheikh Ali Bin Mohammed Al Khalifa Stadium
Capacity: 30,000Capacity: 20,000Capacity: 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 2Pot 3Pot 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 :
  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. Penalty shoot-out if only two teams are tied and they met in the last round of the group;
  8. Disciplinary points ;
  9. Drawing of lots.
All times are local, AST.
MatchdayDatesMatches
Matchday 125–27 November 20201 v 4, 2 v 3
Matchday 228–30 November 20204 v 2, 3 v 1
Matchday 31–3 December 20201 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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Final

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.
TeamQualified onPrevious appearances in FIFA U-17 World Cup1