The 2021 Africa U-20 Cup of Nations qualification was a men's under-20

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 ...

competition which decided the participating teams for the

2021 Africa U-20 Cup of Nations The 2021 U-20 Africa Cup of Nations was the 16th edition (23rd edition if editions of the tournament without hosts are included), the biennial international youth association football, football tournament organized by the Confederation of African ...

. Players born 1 January 2001 or later were eligible to participate in the competition. A total of twelve teams qualified to play in the final tournament, including

Mauritania Mauritania, officially the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, is a sovereign country in Maghreb, Northwest Africa. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Western Sahara to Mauritania–Western Sahara border, the north and northwest, ...

who qualified automatically as hosts.

Teams

47 of the 54 CAF members entered the qualifying tournament of their zone, including the hosts Mauritania, which also participated in qualification despite automatically qualified for the final tournament. This was the first edition in Africa U-20 Cup of Nations to have expanded to 12 teams instead of eight. Each of the six zones received two spots in the final tournament. ;Notes *Teams in bold qualified for the final tournament. *(H): Qualifying tournament hosts *(Q): Automatically qualified for final tournament regardless of qualification results

Schedule

The qualifying competition was split into regional competitions, with the teams entering the qualifying tournament of their zone. The final arrangements of the zonal qualifiers were decided later due to the delays caused by the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

. The schedule of each qualifying zone was as follows.

North Zone

Tunisia hosted the 2020 UNAF U-20 Tournament, which also served as the qualifiers for the Africa U-20 Cup of Nations, between 15 and 27 December 2020. The matches were played at

Radès Radès () is a harbour city in Ben Arous Governorate, Tunisia. Situated south-east of the capital Tunis, some consider it a Tunis suburb, and parts of the harbor installations of Tunis are located in Radès. Rades is divided into sub cities: ...

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Stade Olympique de Radès Hammadi Agrebi Stadium (), opened as 7 November Stadium, is a multi-purpose stadium located in the sports city of Radès, located in Radès, in the southern suburb of the city Tunis. The stadium was established in 2001 to host the 2001 Mediterran ...

) and

Tunis Tunis (, ') is the capital city, capital and largest city of Tunisia. The greater metropolitan area of Tunis, often referred to as "Grand Tunis", has about 2,700,000 inhabitants. , it is the third-largest city in the Maghreb region (after Casabl ...

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Stade El Menzah El Menzah Stadium is a multi-purpose stadium, located in El Menzah, Tunis, Tunisia. The stadium was established in 1967 on the occasion of the 1967 Mediterranean Games on the ruins of Vélodrome Stadium. Its capacity is 39,858 spectators. Hist ...

). The draw for the fixtures was held on 30 November 2020. The five teams were placed in one group, with the winners and the runners-up qualifying for the final tournament. All times are local,

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West A Zone

Senegal hosted the WAFU-UFOA Zone A U-20 Championship between 20 and 29 November 2020. The matches were played at

Thiès Thiès (; ; Noon language, Noon: ''Chess'') is the third largest city in Senegal with a population of 391,253 in 2023. It lies east of Dakar on the N2 road (Senegal), N2 road and at the junction of railway lines to Dakar, Bamako and Saint-Louis, ...

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Stade Lat-Dior The Stade Lat Dior, also known as the Thies stadium, is a multi-sports stadium in Thiès, Senegal. The stadium is named in honour of Lat Jor Lat Jor Ngoné Latir Jop (; ; c. 1842–1886) was a nineteenth-century damel (king) of Cayor, a Wolof st ...

) and

Pikine Pikine is a city in the Pikine Department of the Dakar Region of Senegal. Lying to the east of Dakar city centre, at the 2013 Census it had a population of 1,170,791. The department includes the villages of Yeumbeul, Thiaroye, Mbao, and Keur Mas ...

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Stade Al Djigo Stade Alassane Djigo is a multi-use stadium in Pikine, Senegal. It is currently used mostly for football (soccer), football matches and serves as a home ground of AS Pikine. The stadium holds 10,000 spectators. Sometimes AS Douanes (Senegal), AS ...

). All times are local, GMT (

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Group stage

The draw for the group stage was held on 6 November 2020. The seven teams were drawn into two groups of three and four teams. The winners and the runners-up of each group advanced to the semi-finals.

Group A

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Group B

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Knockout stage

Semi-finals

Final

Winner qualified for

West B Zone

The WAFU-UFOA Zone B qualifiers for the Africa U-20 Cup of Nations were initially planned to be hosted by Burkina Faso, but were later shifted to Togo due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with the matches scheduled to be played between 18 November–2 December. On 7 November, Togo announced that they would not be able to host the tournament due to a resurgence of COVID-19 cases in the country, with the outbreak located in the

Lomé Lomé ( , ) is the Capital (political), capital and List of cities in Togo, largest city of Togo. It has an urban population of 837,437

area. On 17 November, it was announced that the regional qualifiers would now be played in Benin between 5 and 19 December. The draw was also announced on the same day. The matches were played at

Porto-Novo , , ; ; ; also known as Hogbonu and Ajashe) is the Capital (political), capital and List of cities in Benin, second-largest city of Benin. The commune covers an area of and as of 2002 had a population of 223,552 people. In 1863, following Bri ...

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Stade Charles de Gaulle Stade Charles de Gaulle is a multi-use stadium in Porto-Novo, Benin named after Charles de Gaulle. It is currently used mostly for football matches and is used as the home stadium of AS Dragons FC de l'Ouémé The Association Sportive Dragons ...

) and

Cotonou Cotonou (; ) is the largest city in Benin. Its official population count was 679,012 inhabitants in 2012; however, over two million people live in the larger urban area. The urban area continues to expand, notably toward the west. The city lies ...

( Stade René Pleven). All times are local,

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Group stage

The seven teams were drawn into two groups of three and four teams. The winners and the runners-up of each group advanced to the semi-finals.

Group A

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Group B

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Knockout stage

Semi-finals

Winners qualified for

Third place match

Final

Central Zone

The

UNIFFAC The Central African Football Federations' Union, officially abbreviated as UNIFFAC, is a sports governing body representing the football associations of Central Africa. Former president of the Cameroonian Football Federation, Iya Mohammed was elec ...

qualifiers for the Africa U-20 Cup of Nations were held in Equatorial Guinea between 15 and 22 December 2020. The matches were played at

Malabo Malabo ( , ; formerly ) is the capital of Equatorial Guinea in the province of Bioko Norte. It is located on the north coast of the island of Bioko (, and as ''Fernando Pó'' by the Europeans). In 2018, the city had a population of approxim ...

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Estadio de Malabo Estadio de Malabo is a multi-purpose stadium in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, opened in 2007 and currently used mostly for football matches. With a seating capacity of about 15,250, it serves as the home ground of the Equatorial Guinea national foo ...

). All times are local,

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Group stage

The six teams were drawn into two groups of three teams. The winners of each group qualified for the

Group A

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Group B

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Final

Central-East Zone

The

CECAFA The Council for East and Central Africa Football Associations (, , , ; officially abbreviated as CECAFA) is an association of the football playing nations in mostly East Africa and parts of Central Africa. An affiliate of the Confederation of Afr ...

qualifiers for the Africa U-20 Cup of Nations were initially planned to be hosted by Sudan in October–November 2020 but were then later shifted and held in Tanzania between 22 November–2 December 2020. The matches were played at

Karatu Karatu District (''Wilaya ya Karatu'', in Swahili language, Swahili) is one of seven Districts of Tanzania, districts of the Arusha Region of Tanzania. The district is bordered to the north by the Ngorongoro District and to the west by the Meatu ...

(Black Rhino Academy) and

Arusha Arusha is a city in Tanzania. The city is the Capital city, capital of the Arusha Region. It has a population of 617,631 people.

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Sheikh Amri Abeid Memorial Stadium Sheikh Amri Abeid Memorial Stadium is a multi-purpose stadium in Kaloleni, Tanzania, Kaloleni ward of Arusha in Arusha Region of Tanzania. It is named after the Tanzanian cleric, politician and poet Kaluta Amri Abeid and is currently used mostly ...

). All times are local,

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Group stage

All the 11 teams were drawn into 3 groups, 2 groups of 4 teams and 1 group of 3 teams. The winners of each group and the best runners-up advanced to the semi-finals.

Group A

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Group B

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Group C

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Ranking of second-placed teams

Knockout stage

Semi-finals

Winners qualified for

Third place match

Final

South Zone

The

COSAFA Council of Southern Africa Football Associations (; ), officially abbreviated as COSAFA, is an association of the football playing nations in Southern Africa. It is affiliated to CAF. COSAFA organise several tournaments in the Southern African ...

qualifiers for the Africa U-20 Cup of Nations were initially planned to be hosted by Mauritius, but were later shifted to South Africa after Mauritius withdrew as hosts due to the COVID-19 regulations. The matches were played at

Port Elizabeth Gqeberha ( , ), formerly named Port Elizabeth, and colloquially referred to as P.E., is a major seaport and the most populous city in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. It is the seat of the Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipal ...

( Wolfson Stadium,

Gelvandale Stadium Gelvandale Stadium is a multi-use stadium located in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. The stadium is equipped with an athletics track, football pitch and floodlights. It is currently used mostly as a community sports ground, and by local amateur fo ...

and

Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium The Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium is a association football, soccer and rugby union stadium in Gqeberha in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. It hosted 2010 FIFA World Cup matches, including the third-place play off. It is the home of Chip ...

). All times are local, SAST (

UTC+2 UTC+02:00 is an identifier for a time offset from UTC of +02:00. In ISO 8601, the associated time would be written as 2020-11-08T23:41:45+02:00. As standard time (year-round) Principal cities: Pretoria, Cape Town, Johannesburg, Durban, Por ...

Group stage

The group stage was played in 3 groups as a round-robin, where the group winners and the best runner up advanced to the semi-finals.

Group A

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Group B

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Group C

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Ranking of second-placed teams

Due to groups having a different number of teams, the results against the fourth-placed teams in four-team groups were not considered for this ranking.

Knockout stage

Semi-finals

Winners qualified for

Third place match

Final

Qualified teams

The following 12 teams qualify for the final tournament. :

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

Goalscorers

Notes

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Africa U-20 Cup of Nations qualification 2021 U-20 Cup of Nations qualification

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 ...

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November 2020 sports events in Africa December 2020 sports events in Africa Association football events postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic