2023 AFC U-20 Asian Cup


The 2023 AFC U-20 Asian Cup was the 41st edition of the AFC U-20 Asian Cup, the biennial international youth football championship organised by the Asian Football Confederation for the men's under-20 national teams of Asia. This edition is the first to be played as an under-20 tournament, as the AFC proposed to switch the tournament from under-19 to under-20 starting from 2023. Moreover, the tournament was also rebranded from the "AFC U-19 Championship" to the "AFC U-20 Asian Cup". On 25 January 2021, the AFC announced that Uzbekistan would retain hosting rights for the 2023 edition after the cancellation of the 2020 AFC U-19 Championship due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
A total of 16 teams are playing in the tournament. The top four teams of the tournament, Japan, Iraq, South Korea and Uzbekistan, qualified for the 2023 FIFA U-20 World Cup as the AFC representatives besides Indonesia who automatically qualified as hosts. However, Indonesia was removed from hosting the tournament on 29 March 2023 and thus could not participate. Subsequently, FIFA awarded Argentina the rights to organize the 2023 FIFA U-20 World Cup in place of the original hosts Indonesia.
Saudi Arabia were the title holders, having won the title in 2018, but were eliminated from the group stage and thus failed to defend the title. Uzbekistan won the first-ever title after a 1–0 win over Iraq in the final.

Qualification

Qualification matches were played between 10 and 18 September 2022.

Qualified teams

A total of 16 teams including hosts Uzbekistan qualified for the final tournament. Countries that initially qualified for the 2020 AFC U-19 Championship but missed out this edition included Bahrain, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, and Yemen. China and Jordan marked their return after initially failed to qualify in the previous edition. Kyrgyzstan qualified for the first time since 2006, Syria returned to the tournament since 2012, and Oman returned after the 2014 edition.
TeamQualified asAppearancePrevious best performance
8th
15th
15th
38th
8th
39th
18th
3rd
8th
5th
21st
20th
2nd 2nd
3rd 19th
4th 18th
5th 11th

Venues

The matches are being played on four venues at two cities across Uzbekistan.

Trophy

AFC has uploaded pictures of the new AFC U20 Asian Cup 2023 on their social media pages on 18 March 2023.

Match officials

In February 2023, AFC announced a total of 13 referees and 15 assistant referees appointed for the tournament.
Referees
Assistant referees
  • Faisal Al-Awi
  • Chen Hsiao-en
  • So Kai Man
  • Farhad Moravveji
  • Yosuke Takebe
  • Ramina Tsoi
  • Mohammad Bin Tan
  • Nasser Al-Busaidi
  • Ali Muhammad
  • Heba Saadieh
  • Faisal Al-Shammari
  • Jang Jong-pil
  • Vafo Karaev
  • Ahmed Al-Rashdi
  • Sanjar Shayusupov

Draw

The draw of the final tournament was held on 26 October 2022, 12:00 UZT, in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. The 16 teams were drawn into four groups of four teams, with the teams seeded according to their performance in the 2018 AFC U-19 Championship final tournament and qualification, with the hosts Uzbekistan automatically seeded and assigned to Position A1 in the draw.
Pot [|1]Pot 2Pot 3Pot 4

Squads

Players born on or after 1 January 2003 and on or before 31 December 2007 were eligible to compete in the tournament. Each team must register a squad of minimum 18 players and maximum 23 players, minimum three of whom must be goalkeepers.

Group stage

The top two teams of each group advanced to the quarter-finals.
;Tiebreakers
Teams were ranked according to [three three points for a win|points for a win|points], and if tied on points, the following tie-breaking criteria were applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings:
  1. Points in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
  2. Goal difference in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
  3. Goals scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
  4. If more than two teams are tied, and after applying all head-to-head criteria above, a subset of teams are still tied, all head-to-head criteria above are reapplied exclusively to this subset of teams;
  5. Goal difference in all group matches;
  6. Goals scored in all group matches;
  7. Penalty shoot-out if only two teams were tied and they met in the last round of the group;
  8. Disciplinary points ;
  9. Drawing of lots.
All match times are in local time, UZT, as listed by AFC.
MatchdayDatesMatches
Matchday 11–3 March 20231 v 4, 2 v 3
Matchday 24–6 March 20232 v 4, 1 v 3
Matchday 37–9 March 20231 v 2, 3 v 4

[|Group A]

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[|Group B]

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[|Group C]

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[|Group D]

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Knockout stage

In the knockout stage, extra time and penalty shoot-out are used to decide the winner if necessary.

[|Quarter-finals]

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

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Awards

The following awards were given at the conclusion of the tournament:
Top GoalscorerMost Valuable PlayerBest Goalkeeper
Naoki Kumata Abbosbek Fayzullaev Otabek Boymurodov

Discipline

A player or team official is automatically suspended for the next match for the following offences:
  • Receiving a red card
  • Receiving two yellow cards in two matches; yellow cards expire after the completion of the quarter-finals
The following suspensions were served during the tournament:
Player/OfficialOffenceSuspension
Charbel Shamoon in Group A vs Indonesia Group A vs Uzbekistan
Baker Kalbouneh in Group C vs Tajikistan Group C vs South Korea
Erfan Ghorbani in Group B vs Qatar
in Group B vs Australia 		Group B vs Vietnam
Shakhzodbek Rahmatullayev in Group A vs Iraq Group A vs Indonesia
Younis Mohammed in Group B vs Iran
in Group B vs Vietnam 		Group B vs Australia
Yousef Hassan Hussein in Group C vs Tajikistan
in Group C vs South Korea 		Group C vs Oman
Turki Bait Rabia in Group C vs South Korea
in Group C vs Tajikistan 		Group C vs Jordan
Chen Zhexuan in Group D vs Japan
in Group D vs Kyrgyzstan 		Quarter-finals vs South Korea
Behram Abduweli in Group D vs Saudi Arabia
in Group D vs Kyrgyzstan 		Quarter-finals vs South Korea
Kosuke Matsumura in Group D vs Kyrgyzstan
in Group D vs Saudi Arabia 		Quarter-finals vs Jordan

Qualified teams for FIFA U-20 World Cup

The following four teams from AFC qualified for the 2023 FIFA U-20 World Cup in Argentina.
TeamQualified onPrevious appearances in FIFA U-20 World Cup1
11 3 20234
11 3 20234
12 3 202315
12 3 202310