2022 UEFA European Under-19 Championship

The 2022 UEFA European Under-19 Championship was the 19th edition of the UEFA European Under-19 Championship, the annual international youth football championship organised by UEFA for the men's under-19 national teams of Europe. Slovakia hosted the tournament between 18 June and [|1] July 2022. A total of eight teams played in the tournament, with players born on or after 1 January 2003 eligible to participate.
Same as previous editions held in even-numbered years, the tournament acted as the UEFA qualifiers for the FIFA U-20 World Cup. The top five teams of the tournament qualified for the 2023 FIFA U-20 World Cup in Argentina as the UEFA representatives.
Spain were the defending champions, having won the last tournament held in 2019, with the 2020 and 2021 editions cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Europe and the title was not awarded. They were not able to defend the title after failing to qualify for the competition.

Host selection

The timeline of host selection was as follows:

11 January 2019: bidding procedure launched
28 February 2019: deadline to express interest
27 March 2019: Announcement by UEFA that declaration of interest were received from 17 member associations to host one of the UEFA national team youth final tournaments in 2021 and 2022
28 June 2019: Submission of bid dossiers
24 September 2019: Selection of successful host associations by the UEFA Executive Committee at its meeting in Ljubljana

For the UEFA European Under-19 Championship final tournaments of 2021 and 2022, Romania and Slovakia were selected as hosts respectively.

Qualification

The UEFA Executive Committee originally decided on 29 May 2019 to test a new qualifying format for the Under-19 Championship in 2022 and 2023. The qualifying competition would have been played in four rounds over a two-year period from autumn 2020 to spring 2022, with teams divided into three leagues, and promotion and relegation between leagues after each round similar to the UEFA Nations League. However, on 17 June 2020, UEFA announced that the introduction of the new format had been postponed to the 2023 edition due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Europe, and qualification for the 2022 edition would use the previous format involving two rounds only.
A total of 54 UEFA nations entered the competition, and with the hosts Slovakia qualifying automatically, the other 53 teams will compete in the qualifying competition, which consisted of two rounds: the Qualifying round, which took place in autumn 2021, and the Elite round, which took place in spring 2022, to determine the remaining seven spots in the final tournament. The draw for the qualifying round was held on 9 December 2020, 10:30 CET, at the UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland.

Qualified teams

The following teams qualified for the final tournament.
Note: All appearance statistics include only U-19 era.

Team	Method of qualification	Appearance	Last appearance	Previous best performance
			2002
			2014
			2019
			2018
			2011
			2019
			2014
			2016

Match officials

The following officials were appointed for the final tournament:
Referees

Nathan Verboomen
Morten Krogh
Goga Kikacheishvili
Manfredas Lukjančukas
Matthew De Gabriele
António Nobre

Assistant referees

Mathias Hillaert
Deniz Sokolov
Steffen Beck Bramsen
Turkka Joonas Valjakka
Davit Gabisonia
Edgaras Bučinskas
Luke Portelli
Pedro Martins

Fourth officials

Gergő Bogár
Adam Ladebäck

Group stage

The final tournament schedule was announced on 28 April 2022.
The group winners and runners-up advanced to the semi-finals and qualify for the 2023 FIFA U-20 World Cup.

Group A

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Group B

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Knockout stage

FIFA U-20 World Cup play-off

Winners qualified for the 2023 FIFA U-20 World Cup.

Semi-finals

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Team of the tournament

The UEFA Technical Observer team announced the team of the tournament.

Goalkeeper	Defenders	Midfielders	Forwards
Matthew Cox

Qualified teams for FIFA U-20 World Cup

The following five teams from UEFA qualified for the 2023 FIFA U-20 World Cup in Argentina.

Team	Qualified on	Previous appearances in FIFA U-20 World Cup¹
		7
		7
		11
		0
		1