The 2023 AFC U-20 Asian Cup will be the 41st edition of the AFC U-20 Asian Cup (including previous editions of the AFC Youth Championship and AFC U-19 Championship), the biennial international youth football championship organised by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) for the men's under-20 national teams of Asia. This edition will be 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.[1] Moreover, the tournament was also rebranded from the "AFC U-19 Championship" to the "AFC U-20 Asian Cup".[2] 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.[3]
A total of 16 teams will play in the tournament. The top four teams of the tournament will qualify for the 2023 FIFA U-20 World Cup in Indonesia as the AFC representatives besides Indonesia who automatically qualified as hosts. If Indonesia manages to reach the semi-finals, a repechage play-in will take place between the 4 losing quarter-finalists, the winner of which will qualify for the FIFA U-20 World Cup.
Saudi Arabia are the title holders, having won the title in 2018.
The draw of the final tournament was held on 26 October 2022, 12:00 UZT (UTC+5), in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.[7] 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.[8]
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.[9]
Group stage
The top two teams of each group advanced to the quarter-finals.
Tiebreakers
Teams were 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 tie-breaking criteria were applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings:[9]
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 were tied and they met in the last round of the group;
Disciplinary points (yellow card = 1 point, red card as a result of two yellow cards = 3 points, direct red card = 3 points, yellow card followed by direct red card = 4 points);
Uzbekistan
Saudi Arabia
Qatar
Japan
Jordan
South Korea
Indonesia
Oman
Australia
Tajikistan
Iran
Vietnam
Kyrgyzstan
China
Iraq
Syria
