2016 AFC U-19 Championship


The 2016 AFC U-19 Championship was the 39th edition of the AFC U-19 Championship, the biennial international youth football championship organised by the Asian Football Confederation for the men's under-19 national teams of Asia. The tournament was hosted by Bahrain, as announced by the AFC on 3 June 2015, and was scheduled to be played between 13–30 October 2016. A total of 16 teams played in the tournament.
Same as previous editions, the tournament acted as the AFC qualifiers for the FIFA U-20 World Cup. The top four teams of the tournament qualified for the 2017 FIFA U-20 World Cup in South Korea as the AFC representatives, besides South Korea who qualified automatically as hosts. If South Korea were among the top four teams, three play-off matches would be played to decide the fifth-placed team which also qualify for the 2017 FIFA U-20 World Cup; however, this was not necessary as South Korea were eliminated in the group stage.
Japan conquered the title for the first time after beating Saudi Arabia in the final's penalty shootout, and also set a record in the competition for being the first team to win the tournament without conceding a single goal.
On 25 October 2016, the AFC President, Salman Al-Khalifa, congratulated Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Islamic Republic of Iran and Japan on qualifying for the FIFA U-20 World Cup South Korea 2017. The four teams will join hosts South Korea to make up Asia's five representatives at the tournament.

Qualification

The draw for the qualifiers was held on 5 June 2015. A total of 43 teams were drawn into ten groups, with the ten group winners and the five best runners-up qualifying for the final tournament, together with Bahrain who qualified automatically as hosts but also competed in the qualifying stage.
The qualifiers were played between 28 September – 6 October 2015.

Qualified teams

The following 16 teams qualified for the final tournament.
TeamQualified asAppearancePrevious best performance
Group J winners
Group F winners
Group I winners
Group G winners
Group A winners
Group H winners
Group F runners-up
Group C winners
Group J runners-up
Group D winners
Group H runners-up
Group B winners
Group I runners-up
Group E winners
Group B runners-up

Venues

The tournament is played in two venues:

Riffa
Bahrain National Stadium
Capacity: 30,000
Isa Town
Khalifa Sports City Stadium
Capacity: 20,000

Draw

The draw for the final tournament was held on 30 April 2016, 19:00 AST, in Manama. The 16 teams were drawn into four groups of four teams. The teams were seeded according to their performance in the previous edition in 2014.
Pot [|1]Pot 2Pot 3Pot 4
































Squads

Players born on or after 1 January 1997 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
The teams are ranked according to points. If tied on points, tiebreakers are applied in the following order:
  1. Greater number of points obtained in the group matches between the teams concerned;
  2. Goal difference resulting from the group matches between the teams concerned;
  3. Greater number of goals scored in the group matches between the teams concerned;
  4. If, after applying criteria 1 to 3, teams still have an equal ranking, criteria 1 to 3 are reapplied exclusively to the matches between the teams in question to determine their final rankings. If this procedure does not lead to a decision, criteria 5 to 9 apply;
  5. Goal difference in all the group matches;
  6. Greater number of goals scored in all the group matches;
  7. Penalty shoot-out if only two teams are involved and they are both on the field of play;
  8. Fewer score calculated according to the number of yellow and red cards received in the group matches ;
  9. Drawing of lots.
All times are local, AST.

Group A

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is ahead of on head-to-head records : Bahrain 3-2 Saudi Arabia. While is ahead of on numbers of goals which scored : Saudi Arabia 4 goals, South Korea 3 goals

Group B

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Group C

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Group D

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Knockout stage

In the knockout stage, extra time and penalty shoot-out are used to decide the winner if necessary.

Bracket

Quarter-finals

Winners qualified for 2017 FIFA U-20 World Cup.
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Semi-finals

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Final

Winners

Awards

;Most Valuable Player
;Top Scorer
;Fair Play

Goalscorers

;4 goals
;3 goals
;2 goals
;1 goal
;1 own goal

Qualified teams for U-20 World Cup

The following five teams from AFC qualified for the 2017 FIFA U-20 World Cup, including South Korea which qualified as hosts.
TeamQualified onPrevious appearances in tournament1