The 2015 South American Under-20 Women's Football Championship was the seventh edition of the South American Under-20 Women's Football Championship, the biennial international youth football championship organised by the CONMEBOL for the women's under-20 national teams of South America. The tournament was held in Santos, Brazil between 18 November and 3 December 2015.[1]
Same as previous editions, the tournament acted as the CONMEBOL qualifiers for the FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup. The top two teams of the tournament qualified for the 2016 FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup in Papua New Guinea as the CONMEBOL representatives.[2]
Brazil were crowned champions and maintained their streak of winning all seven editions so far, and qualified for the World Cup together with runners-up Venezuela, who qualified for the first time.[3]
Teams
All ten CONMEBOL member national teams entered the tournament.[1]
Players born on or after 1 January 1996 were eligible to compete in the tournament. Each team could register a maximum of 22 players (three of whom must be goalkeepers).[5]
First stage
The draw of the tournament was held on 16 October 2015 during the CONMEBOL Executive Committee meeting at the Hyatt Hotel in Santiago, Chile.[6] The ten teams were drawn into two groups of five teams. Each group contained one team from each of the five "pairing pots": Argentina–Brazil, Colombia–Paraguay, Peru–Uruguay, Chile–Ecuador, Bolivia–Venezuela. The schedule of the tournament was announced on 30 October 2015.[4]
The top two teams of each group advanced to the final stage. The teams were ranked according to points (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:[5]
If teams finished level of points, the final order would be determined according to the same criteria as the first stage, taking into account only matches in the final stage.[5]
This was the first time Venezuela reached the top four in the tournament.
