International football competition
The 2016 UEFA European Under-19 Championship was the 15th edition of the UEFA European Under-19 Championship (65th edition if the Under-18 and Junior eras are included), the annual European international youth football championship contested by the men's under-19 national teams of UEFA member associations. Germany, which were selected by UEFA on 20 March 2012, hosted the tournament between 11 and 24 July 2016.
A total of eight teams competed in the final tournament, with players born on or after 1 January 1997 eligible to participate.
Same as previous editions held in even-numbered years, the tournament acted as the UEFA qualifiers for the FIFA U-20 World Cup. The top five teams qualified for the 2017 FIFA U-20 World Cup in South Korea as the UEFA representatives. This was decreased from the previous six teams, as FIFA decided to give one of the slots originally reserved for UEFA to the Oceania Football Confederation starting from 2017.
Qualification.
The national teams from all 54 UEFA member associations entered the competition. With Germany automatically qualified as hosts, the other 53 teams contested a qualifying competition to determine the remaining seven spots in the final tournament. 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.
Qualified teams.
The following eight teams qualified for the final tournament:
"Note: All appearance statistics include only U-19 era (since 2002)."
Final draw.
The final draw was held on 12 April 2016, 18:00 CEST (), at the Mercedes-Benz Arena in Stuttgart, Germany. The eight teams were drawn into two groups of four teams. There was no seeding, except that hosts Germany were assigned to position A1 in the draw.
Venues.
The tournament was hosted in ten venues:
Squads.
Each national team had to submit a squad of 18 players.
Match officials.
A total of 6 referees, 8 assistant referees and 2 fourth officials were appointed for the final tournament.
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Group stage.
The final tournament schedule was confirmed on 18 April 2016.
The group winners and runners-up advanced to the semi-finals and qualify for the 2017 FIFA U-20 World Cup. The third-placed teams entered the FIFA U-20 World Cup play-off.
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:
All times were local, CEST ().
Knockout stage.
In the knockout stage, extra time and penalty shoot-out were used to decide the winner if necessary.
On 2 May 2016, the UEFA Executive Committee agreed that the competition would be part of the International Football Association Board's trial to allow a fourth substitute to be made during extra time. In the FIFA U-20 World Cup play-off, Michel Vlap of the Netherlands became the first ever fourth substitute, replacing Laros Duarte at half-time in extra time, followed later by Emmanuel Iyoha of Germany replacing Jannes Horn in the 110th minute.
FIFA U-20 World Cup play-off.
Winner qualified for 2017 FIFA U-20 World Cup.
Goalscorers.
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Source: UEFA.com
Team of the Tournament.
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Source: UEFA Technical Report
Qualified teams for FIFA U-20 World Cup.
The following five teams from UEFA qualified for the 2017 FIFA U-20 World Cup.
1 Bold indicates champion for that year. "Italic" indicates host for that year.
References.
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