1979 African Youth Championship

Tournament details
Dates	6 August – 25 February 1978
Teams	11 (from 1 confederation)
Final positions
Champions	Algeria (1st title)
Runners-up	Guinea
Third place	Nigeria
Fourth place	Ethiopia
Tournament statistics
Matches played	10
Goals scored	24 (2.4 per match)
← 1977 1981 →

The 1979 African Youth Championship was the second edition of the biennial qualification tournament for the FIFA World Youth Championship for African nations and the inaugural edition under the African Youth Championship title.

Algeria and Guinea qualified for the 1979 FIFA World Youth Championship in Japan by reaching the final, although the former won their inaugural title via the away goals rule against the latter with the match ending 4–4 on aggregate.

Teams

The following teams entered this edition of the tournament and played at least a match:

Preliminary round

Malawi, Madagascar and Senegal all withdrew, leading to the scrapping of the preliminary round and the advancement of Kenya, Mauritius and Gambia to the first round.

First round

Uganda, Mali, Togo, Ivory Coast and Gambia withdrew, leading Mauritius, Morocco, Guinea, Cameroon and Nigeria to advance to the second round.

Team 1	Agg.Tooltip Aggregate score	Team 2	1st leg	2nd leg
Libya	2–3	Algeria	1–2	1–1
Egypt	0–3	Tunisia	0–1	0–2
Kenya	2–4	Ethiopia	2–0	0–4

Second round

Team 1	Agg.Tooltip Aggregate score	Team 2	1st leg	2nd leg
Tunisia	1–2	Algeria	1–2	0–0
Mauritius	1–2	Ethiopia	1–1	0–1
Guinea	2–0	Morocco	2–0	0–0
Nigeria	3–1	Cameroon	1–1	2–0

Semi-finals

Team 1	Agg.Tooltip Aggregate score	Team 2	1st leg	2nd leg
Ethiopia	0–1	Algeria	0–0	0–1
Nigeria	1–2	Guinea	0–1	1–1

Final

Team 1	Agg.Tooltip Aggregate score	Team 2	1st leg	2nd leg
Algeria	4–4[a]	Guinea	2–1	2–3

Winners

1979 African Youth Championship winners
Algeria First/Inaugural title

Qualification to the World Youth Championship

The two best performing teams qualified for the 1979 FIFA World Youth Championship.

•  Algeria
•  Guinea