2025 AFC U-20 Asian Cup

The 2025 AFC U-20 Asian Cup was the 42nd edition of the AFC U-20 Asian Cup (including previous editions of the AFC Youth Championship and AFC U-19 Championship), the biennial international youth football championship organised by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) for the men's under-20 national teams of Asia.

On 24 May 2024, the AFC announced that China would host the tournament.^[1]

A total of 16 teams played in the tournament. The top four teams qualified for the 2025 FIFA U-20 World Cup in Chile as the AFC representatives.

Uzbekistan were the title holders, having won the title in 2023. They were eliminated on penalties by South Korea in the quarter-finals. Australia clinched their first major youth title since joining the AFC, overcoming three-time winners Saudi Arabia on penalties.

Qualification matches were played between 21 and 29 September 2024.^[2]

A total of 16 teams, including hosts China, qualified for the final tournament.

The competition was held in four venues around Shenzhen.^[3]

The tournament implemented video assistant referees (VAR), a first in the tournament's history, starting from the semi-finals onwards.^[4]

Referees

Assistant referees

The draw of the final tournament was held on 7 November 2024 in Shenzhen, China. The 16 teams were drawn into four groups of four teams, with the teams seeded according to their performance in the 2023 AFC U-20 Asian Cup final tournament and qualification, with the hosts China automatically seeded and assigned to Position A1 in the draw.^[5]

Players born on or after 1 January 2005 and on or before 31 December 2009 were eligible to compete in the tournament. Each team must register a squad of minimum 18 players and maximum 23 players, minimum three of whom must be goalkeepers.

Tiebreakers

Teams were 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 tie-breaking criteria were applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings:^[6]

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 were tied and they met in the last round of the group;
8. 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);
9. Drawing of lots.

All match times are in local time, (UTC+8)

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

All four winners qualified for the 2025 FIFA U-20 World Cup.

There were 93 goals scored in 31 matches, for an average of 3 goals per match.

4 goals

3 goals

2 goals

1 goal

1 own goal

The following teams from AFC qualified for the 2025 FIFA U-20 World Cup in Chile.

¹ Bold indicates champions for that year. Italic indicates hosts for that year.

• 2025 AFC U-17 Asian Cup

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