2022 UEFA European Under-19 Championship qualification
The 2022 UEFA European Under-19 Championship qualifying competition was a men's under-19 football competition that determined the seven teams joining the automatically qualified hosts Slovakia in the 2022 UEFA European Under-19 Championship final tournament. Players born on or after 1 January 2003 were eligible to participate.
Originally, the qualifying competition would use a new format with teams split into three different leagues with promotion and relegation, with the draw of the first round under the new format already held in December 2019. However, on 17 June 2020, UEFA announced that the introduction of the new format had been postponed to the next edition due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and qualification for this edition would use the previous format involving two rounds only.
Apart from Slovakia, 53 of the remaining 54 UEFA member national teams entered the qualifying competition, where the original format consisted of a qualifying round that took place in autumn 2021, and an elite round that took place in spring and summer 2022.
Format
The qualifying competition consisted of the following two rounds:- Qualifying round: Apart from Portugal, which received a bye to the elite round as the team with the highest seeding coefficient, the remaining 52 teams were drawn into 13 groups of four teams. Each group was played in single round-robin format at one of the teams selected as hosts after the draw. The thirteen group winners, thirteen runners-up, and the third-placed team with the best record against the first and second-placed teams in their group advanced to the elite round.
- Elite round: The 28 teams were drawn into seven groups of four teams. Each group was played in single round-robin format at one of the teams selected as hosts after the draw. The seven group winners qualified for the final tournament.
| Matchday | Matches |
| Matchday [|1] | 1 v 4, 3 v [|2] |
| Matchday 2 | 1 v 3, 2 v 4 |
| Matchday 3 | 2 v 1, 4 v 3 |
Tiebreakers
In the qualifying round and elite round, teams were ranked according to points, and if tied on points, the following tiebreaking criteria were applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings :- Points in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
- Goal difference in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
- Goals scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
- If more than two teams were tied, and after applying all head-to-head criteria above, a subset of teams were still tied, all head-to-head criteria above were 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 had the same number of points, and they met in the last round of the group and are tied after applying all criteria above ;
- Disciplinary points ;
- UEFA coefficient ranking for the qualifying round draw;
- Drawing of lots.
- Points;
- Goal difference;
- Goals scored;
- Disciplinary points ;
- UEFA coefficient ranking for the qualifying round draw;
- Drawing of lots.
Qualifying round
Draw
The draw for the qualifying round was held on 3 December 2019, 10:00 CET, at the UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland.The teams were seeded according to their coefficient ranking, calculated based on the following:
- 2016 UEFA European Under-19 Championship final tournament and qualifying competition
- 2017 UEFA European Under-19 Championship final tournament and qualifying competition
- 2018 UEFA European Under-19 Championship final tournament and qualifying competition
- 2019 UEFA European Under-19 Championship final tournament and qualifying competition
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