2016 UEFA Women's Under-17 Championship

2016 UEFA Women's Under-17 Championship
Tournament details
Host country	Belarus
Dates	4–16 May 2016
Teams	8 (from 1 confederation)
Venue(s)	5 (in 4 host cities)
Final positions
Champions	Germany (5th title)
Runners-up	Spain
Third place	England
Fourth place	Norway
Tournament statistics
Matches played	16
Goals scored	58 (3.63 per match)
Top scorer(s)	Alessia Russo; Lorena Navarro; (5 goals each)
Best player(s)	Caroline Siems
	← 2015 2017 →

The 2016 UEFA Women's Under-17 Championship was the 9th edition of the UEFA Women's Under-17 Championship, the annual European international youth football championship contested by the women's under-17 national teams of UEFA member associations. Belarus, which were selected by UEFA on 20 March 2012, hosted the tournament between 4 and 16 May 2016.^[2]

A total of eight teams played in the tournament, with players born on or after 1 January 1999 eligible to participate. Each match had a duration of 80 minutes, consisting of two halves of 40 minutes with a 15-minute half-time.

Same as previous editions held in even-numbered years, the tournament acted as the UEFA qualifiers for the FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup. The top three teams of the tournament qualified for the 2016 FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup in Jordan as the UEFA representatives.^[3]

Qualification

The national teams from 47 UEFA member associations entered the competition, which was a record total, including Andorra who entered a UEFA women's competition for the first time. With Belarus automatically qualified as hosts, the other 46 teams contested a qualifying competition to determine the remaining seven spots in the final tournament.^[4] The qualifying competition consisted of two rounds: the qualifying round, which took place in autumn 2015, and the elite round, which took place in spring 2016.^[5]

Qualified teams

The following eight teams qualified for the final tournament:^[6]

Team	Method of qualification	Finals appearance	Last appearance	Previous best performance
Belarus	Hosts	1st	—	Debut
Germany	Elite round Group 1 winners	8th	2015	Champions (2008, 2009, 2012, 2014)
Spain	Elite round Group 2 winners	7th	2015	Champions (2010, 2011, 2015)
Czech Republic	Elite round Group 3 winners	1st	—	Debut
Italy	Elite round Group 4 winners	2nd	2014	Third place (2014)
Norway	Elite round Group 5 winners	3rd	2015	Fourth place (2009)
England	Elite round Group 6 winners	4th	2015	Fourth place (2008, 2014)
Serbia	Elite round Group 6 runners-up^{[^]}	1st	—	Debut

Notes

^
The best runners-up among all six elite round groups qualified for the final tournament.

Final draw

The final draw was held on 6 April 2016, 11:30 FET (UTC+3), at the Victoria Hotel in Minsk, Belarus.^[7] The eight teams were drawn into two groups of four teams. There was no seeding, except that hosts Belarus were assigned to position A1 in the draw.^[8]

Venues

The tournament was hosted in five venues:^[9]

Barysaw		Minsk
Borisov Arena	Haradski Stadium	Traktor Stadium
Capacity: 13,126	Capacity: 5,402	Capacity: 16,500

Barysaw Minsk Slutsk Zhodzina		Slutsk	Zhodzina
		City Stadium	Torpedo Stadium
		Capacity: 1,896	Capacity: 6,524

Squads

Each national team had to submit a squad of 18 players.^[5]

Match officials

A total of 6 referees, 8 assistant referees and 2 fourth officials were appointed for the final tournament.

Referees

Eleni Antoniou (Greece)
Ana Aguiar (Portugal)
Dimitrina Milkova (Bulgaria)
Elvira Nurmustafina (Kazakhstan)
Tess Olofsson (Sweden)
Vera Opeikina (Russia)

Assistant referees

Oleksandra Ardasheva (Ukraine)
Emilie Aubry (Switzerland)
Helena Buh (Slovenia)
Yelena Jermolajeva (Latvia)
Bianca H.P. Scheffers (Netherlands)
Kinga Seniuk-Mikulska (Poland)
Sibel Yamac Tamkafa (Turkey)
Kristina Yanuskevich (Kazakhstan)

Fourth officials

Volha Tsiareshka (Belarus)
Irina Turovskaya (Belarus)

Group stage

The final tournament schedule was confirmed on 7 April 2016.^[10]

The group winners and runners-up advanced to the semi-finals.

Tiebreakers

The teams were ranked according to points (3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 points for a loss). If two or more teams were equal on points on completion of the group matches, the following tie-breaking criteria were applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings:^[5]

Higher number of points obtained in the group matches played among the teams in question;
Superior goal difference resulting from the group matches played among the teams in question;
Higher number of goals scored in the group matches played among the teams in question;
If, after having applied criteria 1 to 3, teams still had an equal ranking, criteria 1 to 3 were reapplied exclusively to the group matches between the teams in question to determine their final rankings. If this procedure did not lead to a decision, criteria 5 to 9 applied;
Superior goal difference in all group matches;
Higher number of goals scored in all group matches;
If only two teams have the same number of points, and they were tied according to criteria 1 to 6 after having met in the last round of the group stage, their rankings were determined by a penalty shoot-out (not used if more than two teams had the same number of points, or if their rankings were not relevant for qualification for the next stage).
Lower disciplinary points total based only on yellow and red cards received in the group matches (red card = 3 points, yellow card = 1 point, expulsion for two yellow cards in one match = 3 points);
Drawing of lots.

All times were local, FET (UTC+3).

Group A

Pos	Team	Pld	W	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	England	3	3	0	19	3	+16	9	Knockout stage
2	Norway	3	2	1	5	3	+2	6	Knockout stage
3	Serbia	3	1	2	6	6	0	3
4	Belarus (H)	3	0	3	1	19	−18	0

Source: UEFA
Rules for classification: Group stage tiebreakers
(H) Hosts

4 May 2016