The 2023 UEFA European Under-17 Championship qualifying competition was a men's under-17 football competition that determined the 15 teams joining the automatically qualified hosts Hungary in the 2023 UEFA European Under-17 Championship final tournament.[1] Players born on or after 1 January 2006 were eligible to participate.
Apart from Hungary as the host, the remaining 53 teams entered the qualifying competition, where the format consisted of two rounds: Qualifying round, which took place in October and November 2022, and Elite round, which took place in March 2023.
Format
The qualifying competition consisted of the following two rounds:[2]
Qualifying round: Apart from Netherlands and Spain, 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, the 13 runners-up, and the four third-placed teams with the best record against the first and second-placed teams in their group advanced to the elite round.
Elite round: The 32 teams were drawn into eight 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 eight group winners and the seven runners-up with the best record against all teams in their group qualified for the final tournament.
The schedule of each group was as follows, with two rest days between each matchday (Regulations Article 20.04):
Group schedule
Matchday
Matches
Matchday 1
1 v 4, 3 v 2
Matchday 2
1 v 3, 2 v 4
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):[2]
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 have 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 have the same number of points, or if their rankings are 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 ranking for the qualifying round draw;
Drawing of lots.
To determine the four best third-placed teams from the qualifying round, the results against the teams in fourth place were discarded. The following criteria were applied (Regulations Articles 15.01 and 15.03):[2]
Points;
Goal difference;
Goals scored;
Disciplinary points (total 3 matches);
UEFA coefficient ranking for the qualifying round draw;
Drawing of lots.
To determine the seven best runners-up from the elite round, all results were considered. The same criteria as above were applied (Regulations Articles 15.02 and 15.03).[2]
Qualifying round
Draw
The draw for the qualifying round was held on 17 December 2021 at the UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland.[3]
The teams were seeded according to their coefficient ranking, calculated based on the following:[4][5]
Each group contained one team from Pot A, one team from Pot B, one team from Pot C, and one team from Pot D. Based on the decisions taken by the UEFA Emergency Panel, the following pairs of teams could not be drawn in the same group: Serbia and Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo, Azerbaijan and Armenia.
To determine the four best third-placed teams from the qualifying round which advanced to the elite round, only the results of the third-placed teams against the first and second-placed teams in their group were taken into account.
The draw for the elite round was held on 8 December 2022 at the UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland.[13]
The teams were seeded according to their results in the qualifying round.[5] The Netherlands and Spain, 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. Winners and runners-up from the same qualifying round group could not be drawn in the same group, but the best third-placed teams could be drawn in the same group as winners or runners-up from the same qualifying round group.
Matviy Ponomarenko
