The 2017 AFC U-20 Futsal Championship was the first edition of the AFC U-20 Futsal Championship, the biennial international futsal championship organised by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) for the men's youth national teams of Asia. The tournament was hosted by Thailand between 16 and 26 May 2017.[1] Iran and Thailand had signaled their intent to host the inaugural competition.[2]
A total of 21 teams participated in the tournament. The 21 teams were divided into four groups (one with six teams and three with five teams), with the group winners and runners-up advancing to the quarter-finals.[2]
Of the 47 AFC member associations, a total of 22 teams entered the competition. There was no qualification, and all entrants advanced to the final tournament.[2] Saudi Arabia initially entered but decided to withdraw prior to the draw.
The draw for the final tournament was held on 30 March 2017, 15:00 ICT (UTC+7), at the Grand Fourwings Convention Hotel in Bangkok.[5] The 21 teams were drawn into one group of six teams (Group A) and three groups of five teams (Groups B, C and D), with the hosts Thailand automatically assigned to position A1 in the draw.[6][7] As there were no previous editions, the teams were seeded according to the performances of their senior teams in the 2016 AFC Futsal Championship.[8]
Players born after 1 January 1997 were eligible to compete in the tournament. Each team must register a squad of 14 players, minimum two of whom must be goalkeepers (Regulations Articles 27.1 and 27.2).[3]
Match officials
Referees
Ryan Shepherd
Darius Turner
Osama Saeed Idrees
Liu Jianqiao
Lee Po-fu
Vahid Arzpeyma Mohammreh
Hasan Al-Gburi
Hawkar Salar Ahmed
Takeshi Fujita
Hiroyuki Harada
Husein Mahmoud Khalaileh
Nurdin Bukuev
Mohamad Chami
Helday Idang
Rey Ritaga Martinez
Azat Hajypolatov
Khamis Al-Shamsi
Anatoliy Rubakov
Trương Quốc Dũng
Group stage
The top two teams of each group advanced to the quarter-finals.
Tiebreakers
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 Article 10.5):[3]
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 are 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);
In the knockout stage, extra time and penalty shoot-out were used to decide the winner if necessary, except for the third place match where penalty shoot-out (no extra time) was used to decide the winner if necessary (Regulations Articles 14.1 and 15.1).[3]
Since teams from the same association cannot play in both the Youth Olympics boys' and girls' tournaments, if teams from the same association qualify for both tournaments, they must nominate their preferred qualification team, and the next best ranked team will qualify instead if one of the qualified teams are not nominated.
As participation in team sports (Futsal, Beach handball, Field hockey, and Rugby sevens) are limited to one team per gender for each National Olympic Committee (NOC), the participating teams of the 2018 Youth Olympics futsal tournament will be confirmed by mid-2018 after each qualified NOC confirms their participation and any unused qualification places are reallocated.[4]
Awards
The following awards were given at the conclusion of the tournament:
