2025 AFC U-20 Asian Cup


The 2025 AFC U-20 Asian Cup was the 42nd 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.
On 24 May 2024, the AFC announced that China would host the tournament.
A total of 16 teams played in the tournament. The top four teams qualified for the 2025 FIFA U-20 World Cup in Chile as the AFC representatives.
Uzbekistan were the title holders, having won the title in 2023. They were eliminated on penalties by South Korea in the quarter-finals. Australia clinched their first major youth title since joining the AFC, overcoming three-time winners Saudi Arabia on penalties.

Qualification

Qualification matches were played between 21 and 29 September 2024.

Qualified teams

A total of 16 teams, including hosts China, qualified for the final tournament.
TeamQualified asAppearancePrevious best performance
20th
12th
9th
40th
15th
14th
20th
22nd
19th
39th
16th
1st 8th
2nd 3rd
3rd 9th
4th 34th
5th 9th

Venues

The competition was held in four venues around Shenzhen.

Match officials

The tournament implemented video assistant referees, a first in the tournament's history, starting from the semi-finals onwards.
;Referees
;Assistant referees
  • James Lindsay
  • Mohamed Salman
  • Guo Jingtao
  • Luo Zheng
  • So Kai Man
  • Bangbang Syamsudar
  • Hayder Ubaydee
  • Takagi Takumi
  • Ali Jraq
  • Nasser Al-Busaidi
  • Khaled Khalaf
  • Cheon Jin-hee
  • Ismoil Nuraliev
  • Kijsathit Pattarapong
  • Yasser Al-Murshidi
  • Ruslan Serazitdinov

Draw

The draw of the final tournament was held on 7 November 2024 in Shenzhen, China. The 16 teams were drawn into four groups of four teams, with the teams seeded according to their performance in the 2023 AFC U-20 Asian Cup final tournament and qualification, with the hosts China automatically seeded and assigned to Position A1 in the draw.
Pot [|1]Pot 2Pot 3Pot 4

Squads

Players born on or after 1 January 2005 and on or before 31 December 2009 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

;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,

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 were used to decide the winner if necessary.

Quarter-finals

All four winners qualified for the 2025 FIFA U-20 World Cup.
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Semi-finals

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Qualified teams for FIFA U-20 World Cup

The following teams from AFC qualified for the 2025 FIFA U-20 World Cup in Chile.
TeamQualified onPrevious appearances in FIFA U-20 World Cup1
22 February 20259
22 February 202515
23 February 202511
23 February 202516