The 2016 AFC U-19 Championship was the 39th edition of the AFC U-19 Championship, the biennial international youth football championship organised by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) for the men's under-19 national teams of Asia. The tournament was hosted by Bahrain, as announced by the AFC on 3 June 2015, and was scheduled to be played between 13âÂÂ30 October 2016. A total of 16 teams played in the tournament.
Same as previous editions, the tournament acted as the AFC qualifiers for the FIFA U-20 World Cup. The top four teams of the tournament qualified for the 2017 FIFA U-20 World Cup in South Korea as the AFC representatives, besides South Korea who qualified automatically as hosts. If South Korea were among the top four teams, three play-off matches would be played to decide the fifth-placed team which also qualify for the 2017 FIFA U-20 World Cup; however, this was not necessary as South Korea were eliminated in the group stage.
Japan conquered the title for the first time after beating Saudi Arabia in the final's penalty shootout, and also set a record in the competition for being the first team to win the tournament without conceding a single goal.
On 25 October 2016, the AFC President, Salman Al-Khalifa, congratulated Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, IR Iran and Japan on qualifying for the FIFA U-20 World Cup 2017. The four teams will join hosts South Korea to make up Asia's five representatives at the tournament.
The draw for the qualifiers was held on 5 June 2015. A total of 43 teams were drawn into ten groups, with the ten group winners and the five best runners-up qualifying for the final tournament, together with Bahrain who qualified automatically as hosts but also competed in the qualifying stage.
The qualifiers were played between 28 September â 6 October 2015.
The following 16 teams qualified for the final tournament.
The tournament is played in two venues:
The draw for the final tournament was held on 30 April 2016, 19:00 AST (), in Manama. The 16 teams were drawn into four groups of four teams. The teams were seeded according to their performance in the previous edition in 2014.
Players born on or after 1 January 1997 are eligible to compete in the tournament. Each team can register a maximum of 23 players (minimum three of whom must be goalkeepers).
The top two teams of each group advance to the quarter-finals.
The teams are ranked according to points (3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 points for a loss). If tied on points, tiebreakers are applied in the following order:
All times are local, AST ().
In the knockout stage, extra time and penalty shoot-out are used to decide the winner if necessary.
Winners qualified for 2017 FIFA U-20 World Cup.