The 2023 AFC U-17 Asian Cup was the 19th edition of the AFC U-17 Asian Cup (including previous editions of the AFC U-16 Championship and AFC U-17 Championship), the biennial international youth football championship organised by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) for the men's under-17 national teams of Asia. This edition was the first since 2006 to be played as an under-17 tournament, as the AFC proposed to switch the tournament from under-16 to under-17 starting from 2023.[1] Moreover, the tournament was also rebranded from the "AFC U-16 Championship" to the "AFC U-17 Asian Cup".[2]
On 25 January 2021, the AFC announced that Bahrain would retain hosting rights for the 2023 edition after the cancellation of the 2020 AFC U-16 Championship due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[3][4] However, Bahrain decided to withdraw the rights to host the competition on 16 June 2022, requiring a new host to be chosen at a later date.[5] On 23 December 2022, Thailand were chosen to host the tournament by the AFC Executive Committee.[6]
A total of 16 teams played in the tournament. The top four teams of the tournament qualified for the 2023 FIFA U-17 World Cup in Indonesia as the AFC representatives besides Indonesia who qualified automatically as the new host.
Japan were the title holders, having won the title in 2018, and managed to defend their title.
Qualification matches were played between 1–9 October 2022.[7]
Qualified teams
A total of 16 teams including hosts qualified for the final tournament. Bahrain, Indonesia, Oman, United Arab Emirates and North Korea (the latter of which did not enter qualifying) all missed out on this edition after initially qualifying for the previous edition. Furthermore, Afghanistan, Laos, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam all qualified for this edition after initially missing out.
(†): working as both referee and assistant referee.
Draw
The 16 teams were drawn into four groups of four teams, with the teams seeded according to their performance in the 2018 AFC U-16 Championship final tournament and qualification, with the hosts Thailand automatically seeded and assigned to Position A1 in the draw. The draw took place and the match schedule was confirmed on 30 March 2023 in Bangkok, Thailand.[8]
Players born between 1 January 2006 and 31 December 2008 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.[9]
Group stage
The group winners and runners-up advance to the quarter-finals.
Tiebreakers
Teams are to be 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 tie-breaking criteria were applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings:[9]
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 if only two teams were 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);
The schedule for the knockout stage was released in 2023. The top 4 teams in the knockout stage will qualify for the 2023 FIFA U-17 World Cup as AFC representatives.
Japan (4th title)
South Korea
