The 2024 CONCACAF Under-20 Championship was the 8th edition of the CONCACAF Under-20 Championship (29th edition if all eras included), the men's under-20 international

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 ...

tournament organized by

CONCACAF The Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football, abbreviated as CONCACAF ( ; typeset for branding purposes since 2018 as Concacaf), is one of FIFA's six continental governing bodies for association football. Its 4 ...

. It was held in

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

from 18 July to 4 August 2024. The tournament featured a reduction in the number of participating teams following the format changes adopted by CONCACAF in February 2023. It was contested by 12 teams instead of the 20 that participated in previous editions. Same as previous editions, the tournament acted as the CONCACAF qualifiers for the

FIFA U-20 World Cup The FIFA U-20 World Cup is the biennial football world championship tournament for FIFA members' men's national teams with players under the age of 20. The competition has been staged every two years since the inaugural tournament in 1977 when i ...

. The top four teams of the tournament (the four semi-finalists) qualified for the 2025 FIFA U-20 World Cup in

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in western South America. It is the southernmost country in the world and the closest to Antarctica, stretching along a narrow strip of land between the Andes, Andes Mountains and the Paci ...

as the CONCACAF representatives. The

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

were the three-time defending champions.

Competition format

In February 2023, CONCACAF announced format changes for its youth competitions approved by its council. The following changes were adopted for the U-17 and U-20 Championships compared to previous editions: *The number of teams automatically qualified for the final tournament was reduced to 6 from the 16 that previously qualified. These were the six top-ranked teams according to the CONCACAF Men's Under-20 Ranking while the teams ranked between 7 and 41 had to participate in qualifying stage. *The Group stage will consist of three groups instead of the four groups that were previously played. This stage will include the six pre-seeded teams into this round and the six teams coming from the qualifying stage. *The Round of 16 was removed from the knockout stage which will start directly with the quarter-finals. The tournament is divided into two stages: the Group stage and the Knockout stage. The Group stage will feature twelve teams, including the six top-ranked teams that qualified directly and the six teams that qualified via the qualifying round. The twelve teams were split into three groups of four, and will compete in a single round-robin. Eight teams, the top two teams of each group and the two-best third-placed teams, will advance to the Knockout stage which will be played on a

single-elimination A single-elimination knockout, or sudden-death tournament is a type of elimination tournament where the loser of a match-up is immediately eliminated from the tournament. Each winner will play another in the next round, until the final match-up, w ...

format and will consist of the quarter-finals, semi-finals and the final. The quarter-finals winners will advance to the semi-finals and will qualify for the 2025 FIFA U-20 World Cup. The semi-finals winners will play the final to determine the champion.

Host nation and venues

Mexico was appointed as the host country for the tournament by CONCACAF on 26 February 2024, with the Estadio Miguel Alemán Valdés in

Celaya Celaya (; Otomi: ) is a city and its surrounding municipality in the state of Guanajuato, Mexico, located in the southeast quadrant of the state. It is the third most populous city in the state, with a 2005 census population of 310,413. The muni ...

and the

Estadio Sergio León Chávez Estadio Sergio León Chávez is a Multi-purpose stadium in the city of Irapuato. It is currently used mostly for football matches. The stadium holds 25,000 people. The stadium was built in 1967 and hosted three matches in group C of the FIFA ...

Irapuato Irapuato is a Mexican city and municipalities of Mexico, municipality located at the foot of the Arandas Hill (in Spanish Language, Spanish: ''Cerro de Arandas''), in the central region of the Mexican state, state of Guanajuato. It lies between the ...

, both located in the state of

Guanajuato Guanajuato, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Guanajuato, is one of the 32 states that make up the Political divisions of Mexico, Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided into Municipalities of Guanajuato, 46 municipalities and its cap ...

, as the two initial venues. After a police officer was killed outside of the Cuban team hotel on 24 July 2024, all further matches scheduled to be played in Celaya were moved to the

Estadio León The Estadio León, unofficially known as ''Nou Camp'', is a mid-sized football stadium with a seating capacity of 31,297 built in 1967, and located in the city of León, Guanajuato, in the Bajío region of central Mexico. Because of its excelle ...

in León, also located in Guanajuato, and no further matches took place in Celaya.

Teams

Qualification

The U-20 Championship qualifying features a new format approved by the CONCACAF Council in February 2023. The qualifying groups were increased to six instead the four qualifying groups from previous editions, with the six group winners qualifying for the final tournament. A total of 27 (out of 41) CONCACAF national teams entered the qualifying round which took place from 23 February to 2 March 2024. The six teams from the qualifying round joined the six top-ranked teams (based on the CONCACAF men's under-20 rankings as of 12 June 2023) in the group stage of the final tournament for a total of 12 qualified teams.

Squads

Each team was required to register a squad of up to 21 players, three of whom had to be goalkeepers. Players born between 1 January 2005 and 31 December 2009 (ages 15 to 19) were eligible to compete in the tournament (Regulations Articles 9 and 10).

Draw

The draw for the groups composition was held on 11 April 2024, 12:00 EDT ( UTC−4), at the CONCACAF Headquarters in

Miami, Florida Miami is a East Coast of the United States, coastal city in the U.S. state of Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade County in South Florida. It is the core of the Miami metropolitan area, which, with a populat ...

. The 12 involved teams were drawn into three groups of four. Prior to the draw, the 12 teams had been seeded into four pots of three based on the CONCACAF Men's Under-20 Ranking updated after the completion of the qualifying stage (as of 3 March 2024), with the six teams that entered directly into the group stage being placed into pots 1 and 2 and the six teams coming from the qualifying process being placed into pots 3 and 4. The draw started with pot 1 and teams were placed in the first position of Groups A, B, and C according to the order they are drawn. The same procedure was followed to draw pots 2, 3 and 4, with pot 2 teams being placed in second position within their group, pot 3 teams in third position and pot 4 teams in fourth position. The groups formed as a result of the draw were as follows:

Group stage

The top two teams of each group and the two-best third-placed teams will advance to the quarter-finals.

Tiebreakers

The ranking of teams in each group will be determined as follows (Regulations Article 12.7): #

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 ...

obtained in all group matches (three points for a win, one for a draw, zero for a loss). #

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 all group matches. #Number of goals scored in all group matches. If two or more teams are still tied after applying the above criteria, their rankings will be determined as follows: #Points obtained in matches played between the tied teams. #Goal difference in matches played between the tied teams. #Number of goals scored in matches played between the tied teams. #Lower number of disciplinary points based on the number of yellow and red cards in all group matches, according the following additions: #*Yellow card: 1 point #*Indirect red card (second yellow card): 3 points #*Direct red card: 4 points #*Yellow card and direct red card: 5 points #Drawing of lots. The fixture list was confirmed by CONCACAF on 11 April 2024, after the draw. All kick-off times are local times, CST ( UTC−6), and the

Eastern Daylight Time The Eastern Time Zone (ET) is a time zone encompassing part or all of 23 states in the eastern part of the United States, parts of eastern Canada, and the state of Quintana Roo in Mexico. * Eastern Standard Time (EST) is five hours behin ...

( UTC−4) are in parentheses, as listed by CONCACAF.

Group A

Following the incident that led to the change of venue from Celaya to León, the third round matches in Group A were moved from July 25 to 26. ---- ----

Group B

---- ----

Group C

---- ----

Ranking of third-placed teams

Knockout stage

In the knockout stage, if a match is tied at the end of normal playing time,

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 ...

will be played (two periods of 15 minutes each) followed, if necessary, by a

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 ...

to determine the winners (Regulations Article 12.11).

Bracket

Quarter-finals

Winners qualify for the 2025 FIFA U-20 World Cup. ---- ---- ----

Semi-finals

----

Final

Goalscorers

Qualified teams for FIFA U-20 World Cup

The following four teams from CONCACAF qualified for the 2025 FIFA U-20 World Cup in

Notes

References

External links

Under 20s – Men
CONCACAF.com {{DEFAULTSORT:Concacaf U-20 Championship 2024

Championship In sport, a championship is a competition in which the aim is to decide which individual or team is the champion. Championship systems Various forms of competition can be referred to by the term championship. Title match system In this sys ...

2024 The year saw the list of ongoing armed conflicts, continuation of major armed conflicts, including the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Myanmar civil war (2021–present), Myanmar civil war, the Sudanese civil war (2023–present), Sudane ...

U-20 Championship U-20 Championship International association football competitions hosted by Mexico

2025 FIFA U-20 World Cup qualification