my-server
← Wiki

2026 South American U-17 Championship

The 2026 South American U-17 Championship will be the 21st edition of the South American U-17 Championship (, ), the annual international youth football championship organised by CONMEBOL for the men's under-17 national teams of South America. It will be held in Paraguay from 3 to 19 April 2025.

As in the previous edition, the tournament served as the CONMEBOL qualifiers for the FIFA U-17 World Cup. The top 7 teams qualified for the 2026 FIFA U-17 World Cup in Qatar as the CONMEBOL representatives.

Brazil are the defending champions.

Host and venues

Paraguay was chosen as the host country for the tournament during the CONMEBOL Council meeting held on 26 February 2026 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Previously, reports indicated that Chile had also requested to host the event, a proposal that ultimately did not succeed.

This will be the fourth time that Paraguay hosts the tournament having previously done so in 1991, 1997 and 2015.

Teams

All ten CONMEBOL member national teams are eligible to enter the tournament.

Squads

Each team could register a squad of a minimum of 19 and a maximum of 23 players, including at least 3 goalkeepers. Players born between 1 January 2009 and 31 December 2011 (ages 15 to 17) were eligible to compete in the tournament (Regulations Articles 47 and 50).

Draw

The draw of the tournament was held on 10 March 2026, 12:00 PYT (), at the CONMEBOL headquarters in Luque, Paraguay with the ten teams being drawn into two groups of five. The hosts Colombia 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 results in the 2025 South American U-17 Championship (shown in brackets).

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.

The draw resulted in the following groups:

Match officials

On 17 March 2026, the CONMEBOL Referee Commission announced a total of 10 referees and 20 assistant referees appointed for the tournament.

Group stage

The top two teams in each group advanced to the final four, the next two teams advanced to the 5th–8th places play-offs and the two bottom teams were eliminated.

Tiebreakers

In the group 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 20):

  1. Head-to-head result between tied teams;
  2. *Points in head-to-head matches among the tied teams;
  3. *Goal difference in head-to-head matches among the tied teams;
  4. *Goals scored in head-to-head matches among the tied teams;
  5. Goal difference in all group matches;
  6. Goals scored in all group matches;
  7. Fewest red cards received;
  8. Fewest yellow cards received;
  9. Drawing of lots.

All match times are local times, PYT (), as listed by CONMEBOL.

Group A

Group B

Final stage

The final stage will be played on a single-elimination basis and consists of the 5th–8th play-offs matches, semi-finals, third place match and final. If a match was level at the end of normal playing time, the winner would be decided directly by a penalty shoot-out (no extra time will be played).

All match times are local times, PYT (), as listed by CONMEBOL.

5th–8th places

The 5th–8th semi-finals matchups are:

  • Group A third place vs Group B fourth place
  • Group B third place vs Group A fourth place

5th–8th semi-finals

Winners qualify for the 2026 FIFA U-17 World Cup.

Seventh place match

Winner qualify for the 2026 FIFA U-17 World Cup.

Fifth place match

Final four

The semi-finals matchups are:

  • Semi-final 1 (SF1): Group A winners vs Group B runners-up
  • Semi-final 2 (SF2): Group B winners vs Group A runners-up

Semi-finals

Third place match

Final

Qualified teams for FIFA U-17 World Cup

The following seven teams from CONMEBOL will qualify for the 2026 FIFA U-17 World Cup in Qatar.

<div id="1"><sup>1</sup> Bold indicates champions for that year. Italic indicates hosts for that year.</div>

References

External links