The 2018 UEFA European Under-19 Championship qualifying competition was a men's under-19 football competition that determined the seven teams joining the automatically qualified hosts Finland in the 2018 UEFA European Under-19 Championship final tournament.[1]
Apart from Finland, all remaining 54 UEFA member national teams entered the qualifying competition (including Kosovo who entered for the first time).[2] Players born on or after 1 January 1999 were eligible to participate.
Format
The qualifying competition consisted of two rounds:[3]
Qualifying round: Apart from Spain and Portugal, which received byes to the elite round as the teams with the highest seeding coefficient, the remaining 52 teams were drawn into 13 groups of four teams. Each group was played in single round-robin format at one of the teams selected as hosts after the draw. The 13 group winners and the 13 runners-up advanced to the elite round.
Elite round: The 28 teams were drawn into seven groups of four teams. Each group was played in single round-robin format at one of the teams selected as hosts after the draw. The seven group winners qualified for the final tournament.
The schedule of each mini-tournament was as follows (Regulations Article 19.04):[3]
Matchday
Matches
Matchday 1
1 v 4, 3 v 2
Rest days (2 days)
—
Matchday 2
1 v 3, 2 v 4
Rest days (2 days)
—
Matchday 3
2 v 1, 4 v 3
Tiebreakers
In the qualifying round and elite round, teams were ranked according to points (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 (Regulations Articles 14.01 and 14.02):[3]
Goals scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
If more than two teams were tied, and after applying all head-to-head criteria above, a subset of teams were still tied, all head-to-head criteria above were reapplied exclusively to this subset of teams;
Goal difference in all group matches;
Goals scored in all group matches;
Penalty shoot-out if only two teams had the same number of points, and they met in the last round of the group and are tied after applying all criteria above (not used if more than two teams had the same number of points, or if their rankings were not relevant for qualification for the next stage);
Disciplinary points (red card = 3 points, yellow card = 1 point, expulsion for two yellow cards in one match = 3 points);
UEFA coefficient for the qualifying round draw;
Drawing of lots.
Qualifying round
Draw
The draw for the qualifying round was held on 13 December 2016, 10:00 CET (UTC+1), at the UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland.[4][5]
The teams were seeded according to their coefficient ranking, calculated based on the following:[6]
Each group contained one team from Pot A, one team from Pot B, one team from Pot C, and one team from Pot D. For political reasons, Azerbaijan and Armenia, Serbia and Kosovo, and Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo could not be drawn in the same group.[2]
Teams marked in bold qualified for the final tournament.
Groups
The qualifying round had to be played by 19 November 2017, and on the following FIFA International Match Calendar dates unless all four teams agreed to play on another date:[3][6]
28 August – 5 September 2017
2–10 October 2017
6–14 November 2017
Times up to 28 October 2017 are CEST (UTC+2), thereafter times are CET (UTC+1).
The draw for the elite round was held on 6 December 2017, 11:00 CET (UTC+1), at the UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland.[7][8]
The teams were seeded according to their results in the qualifying round.[9]Spain and Portugal, which received byes to the elite round, were automatically seeded into Pot A. Each group contained one team from Pot A, one team from Pot B, one team from Pot C, and one team from Pot D. Teams from the same qualifying round group could not be drawn in the same group.[10]
Erling Haaland
