The 2018 UEFA European Under-17 Championship (also known as 2018 UEFA Under-17 Euro) was the 17th edition of the UEFA European Under-17 Championship (36th edition if the Under-16 era is also included), the annual international youth football championship organised by UEFA for the men's under-17 national teams of Europe. England, which were selected by UEFA on 26 January 2015, hosted the tournament.[1]
A total of 16 teams played in the tournament, with players born on or after 1 January 2001 eligible to participate. Each match had a duration of 80 minutes, consisting of two halves of 40 minutes with a 15-minute half-time.
All 55 UEFA nations entered the competition (including Kosovo who entered for the first time), and with the hosts England qualifying automatically, the other 54 teams competed in the qualifying competition to determine the remaining 15 spots in the final tournament.[3] The qualifying competition consisted of two rounds: Qualifying round, which took place in autumn 2017, and Elite round, which took place in spring 2018.[4]
Qualified teams
The following teams qualified for the final tournament.[5]
Note: All appearance statistics include only U-17 era (since 2002).
The best seven runners-up among all eight elite round groups qualified for the final tournament.
Final draw
The final draw was held on 5 April 2018, 17:30 BST (UTC+1), at the St George's Park in Burton, England.[6] The 16 teams were drawn into four groups of four teams. Hosts England were assigned to position A1 in the draw, while the other teams were seeded according to their results in the qualification elite round, with the seven best elite round group winners (counting all elite round results) placed in Pot 1 and drawn to positions 1 and 2 in the groups, and the remaining eight teams (the eighth-best elite round group winner and the seven elite round group runners-up) placed in Pot 2 and drawn to positions 3 and 4 in the groups.
Each national team submitted a squad of 20 players (Regulations Article 40).[4]
Group stage
The final tournament schedule was confirmed on 10 April 2018.[8]
The group winners and runners-up advance to the quarter-finals.
Tiebreakers
In the group stage, teams are ranked according to points (3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 points for a loss), and if tied on points, the following tiebreaking criteria are applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings (Regulations Articles 17.01 and 17.02):[4]
Goals scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
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;
Goal difference in all group matches;
Goals scored in all group matches;
Penalty shoot-out if only two teams have the same number of points, and they met in the last round of the group and are tied after applying all criteria above (not used if more than two teams have the same number of points, or if their rankings are not relevant for qualification for the next stage);
Disciplinary points (red card = 3 points, yellow card = 1 point, expulsion for two yellow cards in one match = 3 points);
