The 19th U-16 Asian Football Championship (officially: 2020 AFC U-16 Championship ) is expected to take place in Bahrain from November 25th to December 12th, 2020 . Originally it was supposed to take place from September 16 to October 3, 2020. 16 teams will compete against each other first in the group stage in four groups and then in the knockout system . The defending champion is Japan .
All 47 member associations of the AFC registered to participate. The group draw took place on May 9, 2019 in Kuala Lumpur . The teams were divided according to their geographical location into the western region, consisting of West , Central and South Asia , and the eastern region, consisting of Southeast and East Asia . The western region consisted of a group of five and five groups of four teams each and the eastern region of two groups of five and three groups of four teams each.
The groups were held as mini-tournaments from September 14-22, 2019, in which one of the participants acted as the host of a group. Each team played once against each other in their group. The eleven group winners and the four best runners-up qualified for the finals. The hosts from Bahrain also took part in qualifying but were automatically seeded for the finals.
The group draw took place on June 18, 2020 in the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur . The teams were divided into four pots according to their placements at the last event in September 2018 and drawn into four groups of four teams each. Host Bahrain was already set as the group head of group A.
Lottery pot 1 : Bahrain, Japan, Tajikistan, South Korea
Lottery pot 2 : Australia, North Korea, Indonesia, Oman
Lottery pot 3 : India, Iran, Yemen, Saudi Arabia
Lottery pot 4 : China, Uzbekistan, Qatar, Ver. Arab. Emirates
The draw resulted in the following group allocation:
The group winners and runners-up qualify for the quarter-finals, the third and fourth-placed finishers are eliminated from the competition. If two or more teams are tied, the placement is determined by the following criteria:
Number of points in direct comparison
Goal difference in direct comparison
Number of goals in direct comparison
If, after applying criteria 1 to 3, there are still several teams in the same place in the table, criteria 1 to 3 are reapplied, but only to the matches between the teams in question. If this does not result in a definitive placement either, criteria 5 to 9 will be applied.
Lower number of points through yellow and red cards (yellow card 1 point, yellow-red and red card 3 points, yellow card followed by a direct red card 4 points)
The quarter-finals, semi-finals and the final are played in the knockout system . If the games in the final round are tied after the regular playing time of 90 minutes, there will be a penalty shoot-out . An extension of 15 minutes twice is not played out.
Bahrain
Tajikistan
South Korea
Japan
North Korea
Oman
Australia
Indonesia
Iran
Yemen
India
Saudi Arabia
Qatar
Ver. Arab. Emirates
Uzbekistan
China