The 2025 South American U-20 Championship will be the 31st edition of the South American U-20 Championship (Spanish: CONMEBOL Sudamericano Sub-20, Portuguese: CONMEBOL Sul-Americano Sub-20), the biennial international youth football championship organised by CONMEBOL for the men's under-20 national teams of South America. It will be held in Peru from 23 January to 16 February 2025.[1][2]
Same as previous editions, the tournament will act as the CONMEBOL qualifiers for the FIFA U-20 World Cup. The top four teams will qualify for the 2025 FIFA U-20 World Cup in Chile as the CONMEBOL representatives, besides Chile who automatically qualify as host (if Chile were among the top four teams, the fifth-placed team would also qualify for the 2025 FIFA U-20 World Cup).[3]Brazil are the defending champions.
Peru was announced as host country for the tournament by the CONMEBOL President Alejandro Domínguez during a CONMEBOL Council meeting held on 10 April 2024, with Arequipa as host city.[1][4] The Peruvian Football Federation had submitted to CONMEBOL in March 2024 the bid to organize this competition.[5]
This will be the third time that Peru hosts the tournament, having previously done so in 1975 and 2011.[6] Arequipa will once again be the host city as in 2011 when it shared the organization with Tacna and Moquegua.[7]
With three venues required as a minimum by CONMEBOL,[8] four possible venues were initially considered: Estadio Monumental UNSA, Estadio Melgar, Estadio La Tomilla and Estadio Municipal de Sachaca, with the latter three needing considerable improvements to host the matches.[9][10]
Teams
All ten CONMEBOL member national teams are eligible to enter the tournament.
Each team could register a maximum of 23 and a minimum of 19 players, including at least 3 goalkeepers. Players born between 1 January 2005 and 31 December 2009 (ages 16 to 20) were eligible to compete in the tournament (Regulations Articles 47 and 50).[3]
Draw
The draw of the tournament was held on 29 October 2024, 12:00 PYT (UTC−3), at the CONMEBOL headquarters in Luque, Paraguay.[11] The ten involved teams will be drawn into two groups of five. The hosts Peru and defending champions Brazil were seeded into Group A and Group B respectively and assigned to position 1 in their group, while the remaining teams were placed into four "pairing pots" according to their final position in the 2023 South American U-20 Championship (shown in brackets).[11]
From each pot, the first team drawn was placed into Group A and the second team drawn was placed into Group B. In both groups, teams from pot 1 were allocated in position 2, teams from pot 2 in position 3, teams from pot 3 in position 4 and teams from pot 4 in position 5.[12]
The draw resulted in the following groups:[13]
The top three teams in each group advanced to the final stage.
Tiebreakers
In the first stage, teams were ranked according to points earned (3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 points for a loss). If tied on points, tiebreakers would be applied in the following order (Regulations Article 21):[3]
Head-to-head result between tied teams;
Points in head-to-head matches among the tied teams;
Goal difference in head-to-head matches among the tied teams;
Goals scored in head-to-head matches among the tied teams;
Goal difference in all group matches;
Goals scored in all group matches;
Fewest red cards received;
Fewest yellow cards received;
Drawing of lots.
All match times are in COT (UTC−5), as listed by CONMEBOL.
If teams finished level on points, the final rankings would be determined according to the same criteria as the first stage, taking into account only matches in the final stage.
All match times are in PET (UTC−5), as listed by CONMEBOL.
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