2021 U-17 Africa Cup of Nations explained

Tourney Name:Africa U-17 Cup of Nations
Year:2021
Country:Morocco
Dates:Cancelled
Num Teams:12
Confederations:1
Prevseason:2019
Nextseason:2023

The 2021 U-17 Africa Cup of Nations, known for sponsorship purposes as the 2021 Total U-17 Africa Cup of Nations, was planned to be the 14th edition (19th if editions of the tournament without hosts are included) of the biennial African youth football tournament organized by the Confederation of African Football (CAF) for players aged 17 and below. Cameroon would have been the defending champions.

CAF announced Morocco as hosts of this edition in September 2018.[1] This would have been the first edition of the tournament to feature 12 teams in the group stages instead of 8 from previous editions.[2] The semi-finalists would have normally qualified for the 2021 FIFA U-17 World Cup in Peru as the CAF representatives. However, FIFA decided on 24 December 2020 to cancel that tournament due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[3]

This edition of the tournament was originally scheduled to take place between 13 and 31 March 2021. However, CAF announced on 8 March 2021 that the tournament had been cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic both in Morocco and in Africa at large.[4] Zambia offered to host the tournament at a later date to be agreed upon with CAF[5] [6] which never materialized.

Qualification

See main article: 2021 Africa U-17 Cup of Nations qualification.

On 20 July 2017, CAF decided that the qualification format should be changed and split according to zones.[7]

Player eligibility

Players born 1 January 2004 or later are eligible to participate in the competition.

Qualified teams

The following twelve teams qualified for the final tournament.

Note: All appearance statistics count only those since the introduction of final tournament in 1995.

TeamZonedata-sort-type="number"AppearancePrevious best performance
(hosts) North Zone 3rd (2013)
North Zone 2nd (2009)
West A Zone 3rd (2011, 2019)
West A Zone 9th (2015, (2017)
West B Zone 10th (2001, 2007)
West B Zone 6th (2013)
Central-East Zone 3rd (2017, 2019)
Central-East Zone 2nd (2019)
Central Zone 8th (2003, 2019)
Central Zone 3rd (2011)
South Zone 4th (2015)
South Zone 2nd (2015)

Draw

The draw of the group stage was held on 24 February 2021, 13:00 WAT (UTC+1).[8] The 12 qualified teams were drawn into 3 groups of 4 teams.

Group stage

The top two teams of each group advance to the quarter-finals along with the two best 3rd placed teams.

Tiebreakers:

Teams are ranked according to the three points for a win system (3 for a win, 1 for a draw and 0 or none for a loss) and if tied on points, the following tie-breaking criteria are applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings (Regulations Article 71):Web site: 20 October 2020. U-17 AFCON Regulations. CAFOnline.com. 13 January 2021.

  1. Points in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
  2. Goal difference in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
  3. Goals scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
  4. 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;
  5. Goal difference in all group matches;
  6. Goals scored in all group matches;
  7. Drawing of lots.

All times are in WAT (UTC+1).[9]

Group A

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Group B

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Group C

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Ranking of third-placed teams

Knockout stage

Final

Broadcasting

Final standings

Per statistical convention in football, matches decided in extra time are counted as wins and losses, while matches decided by a penalty shoot-out are counted as draws.

|-| colspan="11"| Eliminated in the quarter-finals|-|-| colspan="11"| Eliminated in group stage|-

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Notes and References

  1. Web site: 29 September 2018. Decisions of CAF Executive }} - 27 & 28 September 2018]. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20230207205305/https://www.cafonline.com/news-center/news/decisions-of-caf-executive--27-28-september-2018. 7 February 2023. CAFOnline.com. 23 September 2022. Total U-17 AFCON 2021 : Morocco.
  2. Web site: 21 November 2019. CAF Holds Executive Committee Meeting ahead of CAN Total U-23 Final. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20191122040616/https://www.cafonline.com/news-center/news/la-caf-a-tenu-ce-jour-au-caire-la-seconde-reunion-statutaire-de-son-comite-execu. 22 November 2019. CAFOnline.com. 21 November 2019.
  3. Web site: 24 December 2020. Update on FIFA Women's World Cup and men's youth competitions. FIFA. 24 December 2020.
  4. Web site: 8 March 2021. 2021 Total U17 Africa Cup of Nations cancelled. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20210309060236/https://www.cafonline.com/news-center/news/2021-total-u17-africa-cup-of-nations-cancelled. 9 March 2021. CAFOnline.com. 9 March 2021.
  5. Web site: 11 March 2021. Zambia offers to host cancelled 2021 U17 Africa Cup tournament. ZamFoot. 19 March 2021.
  6. Web site: 11 March 2021. Zambia ready to host U-17 AFCON. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20210311075249/https://www.faz.co.zm/2021/03/11/zambia-ready-to-host-u-17-africa-cup-of-nations/. 11 March 2021. FAZ. 19 March 2021.
  7. Web site: 20 July 2017. Decisions of CAF Executive Committee – 20 July 2017. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20170722210856/http://cafonline.com/en-US/NewsCenter/News/NewsDetails?id=IBQIwLhKu2GhKGftIp0AZw. 22 July 2017. CAFOnline.com. 20 July 2019. The Committee decided to organize zonal qualifiers for the Africa Cup of Nations for the youth categories (U-17, U-20, U-23), with the flexibility offered to each zone to propose a formula. The committee also resolved to strengthen medical checks in determining the eligibility of players..
  8. Web site: 22 February 2021. CAN U17 : les 12 qualifiés connus, tirage au sort des poules mercredi!. CAN U17: the 12 known qualifiers, group draw on Wednesday!. Afrik Foot. 22 February 2021. fr-FR.
  9. Confederation of African Football. CAF_Online. 1090927540062031872. 31 January 2019. Here is the fixtures of #TotalAFCONU20.