2017 FIFA U-20 World Cup

The 2017 FIFA U-20 World Cup was the 21st edition of the FIFA U-20 World Cup, the biennial international men's youth football championship contested by the under-20 national teams of the member associations of FIFA, since its inception in 1977 as the FIFA World Youth Championship. The tournament was hosted by South Korea from 20 May to 11 June 2017.^[2]

Along with Japan and Mexico, South Korea became the third nation to have hosted all of FIFA men's international competitions, namely the 2002 FIFA World Cup, the 2001 FIFA Confederations Cup, and the 2007 FIFA U-17 World Cup.

The South Korean FA originally made a request to host the tournament outside the traditional June/July period, as it would clash with South Korea's rainy season, as well as any possible national team selection should they have qualified for the Confederations Cup.^[3]

Serbia, the 2015 champions, were not able to defend their title as they failed to reach the final round of the UEFA qualifying tournament. In doing so, they became the fifth consecutive incumbent title holder to fail to qualify for the subsequent tournament. The official match ball used in the tournament was Adidas Krasava.

England won their first FIFA U-20 World Cup title after beating Venezuela 1–0 in the final via a goal from Dominic Calvert-Lewin.^[4]^[5]

Host selection

Along with asking member associations whether it wished to host the Under 20, Under 17 or the Beach Soccer World Cup in 2017 (along with Women's Tournaments a year previous), a declaration of interest would need to have been sent by 15 May 2013.^[6] A total of 12 countries submitted a bid to host the tournament by the May 2013 deadline:^[7]

The final decision on who would be hosts were made as part of FIFA's Executive Committee meetings in Brazil on 5 December 2013 with Korea Republic being awarded the hosting rights.^[10]

Qualified teams

A total of 24 teams qualified for the final tournament. In addition to South Korea who qualified automatically as hosts, the other 23 teams qualified from six separate continental competitions. Starting from 2017, the Oceania Football Confederation received an additional slot (in total two), while UEFA will have five instead of six slots.^[11]

1. ^ Teams that made their debut.

Venues

Cheonan, Daejeon, Incheon, Seogwipo, Jeonju and Suwon were the six cities chosen to host the competition from a shortlist of nine, with Seoul, Pohang, and Ulsan not chosen.^[2]^[3]

Preparation

As part of preparations for the U-20 World Cup, the 2016 Suwon JS Cup, an international football friendly tournament, was held to prepare the host organisers.

Organization

The following were key milestones in the organization of the tournament:

The match schedule was announced by FIFA on 23 November 2015.^[12]
Former South Korean internationals Ahn Jung-hwan and Park Ji-sung were appointed as the ambassadors of the tournament.^[13]
The official emblem, slogan ("Trigger the Fever") and look of the tournament were unveiled on 16 June 2016.^[14]
The official mascot, Chaormi, a young tiger, was unveiled on 25 August 2016.^[15]
Details of the volunteer programme, which was launched on 1 November 2016, was released on 18 October 2016.^[16]
The official posters were released on 27 October 2016.^[17]
Venue package tickets went on sale on 1 November 2016,^[18] while general ticket sales began on 2 January 2017.^[19] All-out ticket sales kicked off on 16 March 2017.^[20]
NCT Dream were appointed as Local Organising Committee ambassadors, and were also chosen to sing the official song of the tournament: "Trigger the Fever".^[21]

Draw

The draw was held on 15 March 2017, 15:00 KST (UTC+9), at the Suwon Atrium in Suwon, South Korea.^[22]^[23] Two Argentine players who have won the FIFA U-20 World Cup, Diego Maradona and Pablo Aimar, participated in the draw.^[24] Minho Choi from the South Korean idol group SHINee also participated in the draw.^[23]

The 24 teams were drawn into six groups of four teams, with hosts South Korea being automatically seeded into Pot 1 and assigned to the first position of group A. The rest of the teams were seeded into their respective pots based on their results in the last five FIFA U-20 World Cups (more recent tournaments weighted more heavily), as follows:^[25]

2007 FIFA U-20 WC: 20% value of total points;
2009 FIFA U-20 WC: 40% value of total points;
2011 FIFA U-20 WC: 60% value of total points;
2013 FIFA U-20 WC: 80% value of total points;
2015 FIFA U-20 WC: 100% value of total points.

Furthermore, five bonus points were added to each of the 6 continental champions from the qualifying tournaments.

The draw started with the hosts South Korea being "drawn" to A1. Teams from Pot 1 were drawn first, followed by Pot 2, Pot 3, and finally Pot 4, with each team also drawn to one of the positions within their group. Teams from the same confederation could not be drawn against each other for the group stage.^[25]

The draw resulted in the following groups:^[23]

Match officials

A total of 22 refereeing trios (a referee and two assistant referees), 5 support referees and 21 video assistant referees were appointed for the tournament.^[26]^[27] This was the first FIFA underage tournament which uses the video assistant referee.^[28]

Squads

Each team had to name a preliminary squad of 35 players. From the preliminary squad, the team had to name a final squad of 21 players (three of whom must be goalkeepers) by the FIFA deadline. Players in the final squad could be replaced due to serious injury up to 24 hours prior to kickoff of the team's first match.^[29] The squads were announced by FIFA on 11 May 2017.^[30]^[31]

Group stage

The top two teams of each group and the four best third-placed teams advanced to the round of 16.

All times are local, KST (UTC+9).^[32]

Tiebreakers

The rankings of teams in each group were determined as follows (regulations Article 17.7):^[29]

points obtained in all group matches;
goal difference in all group matches;
number of goals scored in all group matches;

If two or more teams were equal on the basis of the above three criteria, their rankings were determined by:

points obtained in the group matches between the teams concerned;
goal difference in the group matches between the teams concerned;
number of goals scored in the group matches between the teams concerned;
fair play points:
- first yellow card: minus 1 point;
- indirect red card (second yellow card): minus 3 points;
- direct red card: minus 4 points;
- yellow card and direct red card: minus 5 points;
drawing of lots by the FIFA Organising Committee.

Group A

Source: FIFA
Rules for classification: Group stage tiebreakers
(H) Hosts

20 May 2017