The 2018 AFC U-16 Championship was the 18th edition of the

AFC U-16 Championship The AFC U-17 Asian Cup, formerly known as the AFC U-16 Championship and AFC U-17 Championship, is a football competition, organised by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) held once every two years for Asian under-17 teams that also serves as a q ...

, the biennial international youth

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

championship organised by the

Asian Football Confederation The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) is the governing body of association football, beach soccer, and futsal in most countries and territories in Asia. The AFC was formed in 1954. It has 47 members. The Asian Ladies Football Confederation ( ...

(AFC) for the men's under-16 national teams of Asia. It took place in

Malaysia Malaysia is a country in Southeast Asia. Featuring the Tanjung Piai, southernmost point of continental Eurasia, it is a federation, federal constitutional monarchy consisting of States and federal territories of Malaysia, 13 states and thre ...

, which was appointed as hosts by the AFC on 25 July 2017, between 20 September and 7 October 2018. A total of 16 teams played in the tournament. The top four teams of the tournament qualified for the

2019 FIFA U-17 World Cup The 2019 FIFA U-17 World Cup was the 18th edition of the FIFA U-17 World Cup, the biennial international men's youth association football, football championship contested by the under-17 national teams of the member associations of FIFA. It was ...

Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

as the AFC representatives.

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

won their third title, and qualified together with runners-up

Tajikistan Tajikistan, officially the Republic of Tajikistan, is a landlocked country in Central Asia. Dushanbe is the capital city, capital and most populous city. Tajikistan borders Afghanistan to the Afghanistan–Tajikistan border, south, Uzbekistan to ...

and semi-finalists

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

and

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the southern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and borders North Korea along the Korean Demilitarized Zone, with the Yellow Sea to the west and t ...

Iraq Iraq, officially the Republic of Iraq, is a country in West Asia. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to Iraq–Saudi Arabia border, the south, Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq border, the east, the Persian Gulf and ...

were the defending champions but were eliminated in the group stage.

Qualification

Qualifying was played on 16–29 September 2017. Malaysia 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.

Venues

The matches were played in three venues around

Klang Valley Klang Valley () is an urban agglomeration in Malaysia that is centered in the federal territories of Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya, and including their adjoining cities and towns in the state of Selangor. It is the urban area of the much larger Ku ...

. The venues were Bukit Jalil National Stadium, UM Arena Stadium and Petaling Jaya Stadium. The final match was held at Bukit Jalil National Stadium.

Draw

The draw of the final tournament was held on 26 April 2018, 15:00 MYT (

UTC+8 UTC+08:00 is an identifier for a time offset from UTC of +08:00. It is the most populous time zone in the world, as well as a possible candidate for ASEAN Common Time, mainly due to China's large population, with an estimated population ...

), at the AFC House in

Kuala Lumpur Kuala Lumpur (KL), officially the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur, is the capital city and a Federal Territories of Malaysia, federal territory of Malaysia. It is the largest city in the country, covering an area of with a census population ...

. The 16 teams were drawn into four groups of four teams. The teams were seeded according to their performance in the

2016 AFC U-16 Championship The 2016 AFC U-16 Championship was the 17th edition of the AFC U-16 Championship, the biennial international youth football championship organised by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) for the men's under-16 national teams of Asia. The tourna ...

final tournament and

qualification Qualification may refer to: Processes * Qualifications-Based Selection (QBS), a competitive contract procurement process established by the United States Congress * Process qualification, ensures that manufacturing and production processes can ...

, with the hosts Malaysia automatically seeded and assigned to Position A1 in the draw.

Squads

Players born on or after 1 January 2002 were eligible to compete in the tournament. Each team should register a squad of minimum 18 players and maximum 23 players, minimum three of whom must be goalkeepers.

Group stage

The top two teams of each group advanced to the quarter-finals. ;Tiebreakers Teams were ranked according to

points A point is a small dot or the sharp tip of something. Point or points may refer to: Mathematics * Point (geometry), an entity that has a location in space or on a plane, but has no extent; more generally, an element of some abstract topologica ...

(3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 points for a loss), and if tied on points, the following tiebreaking criteria were applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings: #Points in head-to-head matches among tied teams; #

Goal difference Goal difference, goal differential or points difference is a form of tiebreaker used to rank sport teams which finish on equal points in a league competition. Either "goal difference" or "points difference" is used, depending on whether matches ar ...

in head-to-head matches among tied teams; #Goals scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams; #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; #Goal difference in all group matches; #Goals scored in all group matches; #

Penalty shoot-out The penalty shootout is a method of determining a winner in sports matches that would have otherwise been drawn or tied. The rules for penalty shootouts vary between sports and even different competitions; however, the usual form is similar to pe ...

if only two teams are tied and they met in the last round of the group; #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); #Drawing of lots. All times are local, MYT (

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 The penalty shootout is a method of determining a winner in sports matches that would have otherwise been drawn or tied. The rules for penalty shootouts vary between sports and even different competitions; however, the usual form is similar to pe ...

without

extra time Overtime (OT) or extra time (ET) is an additional period of play to bring a game to a decision and avoid declaring the match a tie or draw where the scores are the same. In some sports, this extra period is played only if the game is required t ...

was used to decide the winners if necessary.

Bracket

Quarter-finals

The winners qualified for the

. ---- ---- ----

Semi-finals

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Final

Winners

Awards

The following awards were given at the conclusion of the tournament:

Goalscorers

Qualified teams for FIFA U-17 World Cup

The following four teams from AFC qualified for the

. :

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

² Australia qualified as a member of the OFC for ten tournaments between 1985 and 2005.

Notes

References

External links

*, the-AFC.com
AFC U-16 Championship 2018
stats.the-AFC.com {{DEFAULTSORT:AFC U-16 Championship 2018

2018 Events January * January 1 – Bulgaria takes over the Presidency of the Council of the European Union, after the Estonian presidency. * January 4 – SPLM-IO rebels loyal to Chan Garang Lual start a raid against Juba, capital of ...

U-16 Championship U-16 Championship 2018 in Malaysian football AFC International association football competitions hosted by Malaysia September 2018 sports events in Asia October 2018 sports events in Asia