2019 Africa U-17 Cup of Nations

2019 Africa U-17 Cup of Nations
2019 Afrika U-17 Kombe la Mataifa
Tournament details
Host country	Tanzania
Dates	14–28 April 2019
Teams	8 (from 1 confederation)
Venue(s)	2 (in 2 host cities)
Final positions
Champions	Cameroon (2nd title)
Runners-up	Vacant
Third place	Angola
Fourth place	Nigeria
Tournament statistics
Matches played	16
Goals scored	36 (2.25 per match)
Top scorer(s)	Capita (4 goals)
Best player(s)	Stève Mvoué
Fair play award	Angola

The 2019 Africa U-17 Cup of Nations was the 13th edition of the Africa U-17 Cup of Nations (18th edition if tournaments without hosts are included), the biennial international youth football tournament organized by the Confederation of African Football (CAF) for players aged 17 and below. In May 2015, it was decided that the tournament would be hosted by Tanzania.[1]

Four teams of the tournament qualified for the 2019 FIFA U-17 World Cup in Brazil as the CAF representatives. Cameroon won their second title.

Angola and Nigeria qualified for finishing third and fourth in the competition respectively. Defending champions Mali failed to qualify.

Following completion of the tournament, CAF ejected Guinea from the competition, and deleted its results from the records, for fielding players with passports which had a different date of birth to those the players had used in the U-16 age restricted 'International Dream Cup' in Japan. Senegal were given the remaining place at the U-17 World Cup as they had placed behind Guinea during the group stage.[2]

Qualification

The CAF decided in July 2017 that the format of the qualifying competition should be changed and split according to zones.[3] The qualifiers were played between 19 July and 18 September 2018. At the end of the qualification phase, seven teams joined the hosts Tanzania.

Player eligibility

Players born 1 January 2002 or later were eligible to participate in the competition.

Qualified teams

The following eights teams qualified for the final tournament.[4]

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

Team	Zone	Appearance	Previous best performance
Tanzania (hosts)	Central-East Zone	2nd	Group stage (2017)
Morocco	North Zone	2nd	Fourth place (2013)
Senegal	West A Zone	2nd	Group stage (2011)
Guinea	West A Zone	7th	Third place (1995, 2015, 2017)
Nigeria	West B Zone	9th	Champions (2001, 2007)
Cameroon	Central Zone	7th	Champions (2003)
Uganda	Central-East Zone	1st	Debut
Angola	South Zone	4th	Group stage (1997, 1999, 2017)

Venues

The matches were played in two venues.

Cities	Venues	Capacity
Dar es Salaam	National Stadium	60,000
Mbagala, Dar es Salaam	Chamazi Stadium	10,000

Squads

Each squad can contain a maximum of 21 players.[5]

Draw

The draw of the final tournament was held on 20 December 2018, 19:30 EAT (UTC+3), at the Mlimani City Conference Centre in Dar es Salaam.[6][7] The eight teams were drawn into two groups of four teams. The hosts Tanzania were seeded in Group A and allocated to position A1, while 2017 third place Guinea were seeded in Group B and allocated to position B1 (2017 champions and runners-up Mali and Ghana did not qualify). The remaining six teams were seeded based on their results in the 2017 Africa U-17 Cup of Nations (final tournament and qualifiers), and drawn to any of the remaining three positions in each group.[8][9]

Seeds	Pot 1	Pot 2
Tanzania (hosts) Guinea (2017 third place)	Cameroon Angola	Morocco Nigeria Senegal Uganda

Match officials

A total of 13 referees and 14 assistant referees were appointed for the tournament, including one women referee and two women assistant referees, which is the first time women officials were appointed in a CAF men's tournament.[10][11]

Referees

Nabil Boukhalfa (Algeria)
Issa Sy (Senegal)
Tsegay Mogos Teklu (Eritrea)
Abdoul Karim Twagiramukiza (Rwanda)
Ahmed Mahrous Hassan El Ghandour (Egypt)
Samir Guezzaz (Morocco)
Dahane Beida (Mauritania)
Mashood Ssali (Uganda)
Pierre Atcho (Gabon)
Blaise Yuven Ngwa (Cameroon)
Abdulwahid Huraywidah (Libya)
Andofetra Rakotojaona (Madagascar)
Jonesia Rukyaa Kabakama (Tanzania)

Assistant Referees

Eric Ayimavo (Benin)
Habib Judicael Sanou (Burkina Faso)
Adam Brahim Ahmat (Chad)
Salah Abdi Mohamed (Djibouti)
Nouha Bangoura (Senegal)
Youssef El-Bosaty (Egypt)
Mrs Mary Njoroge (Kenya)
Mrs Lidwine Rakotozafinoro (Madagascar)
Abelmiro Dos Reis Montenegro (São Tomé and Príncipe)
James Emile (Seychelles)
Omer Hamid Ahmed (Sudan)
Mohamed Mkono (Tanzania)
Khalil Hassani (Tunisia)
Thomas Kusosa (Zimbabwe)

Group stage

The top two teams of each group advance to the semi-finals and qualify for the 2019 FIFA U-17 World Cup.

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 tiebreaking criteria were applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings (Regulations Article 72):[5]

Points in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
Goal difference in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
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;
Drawing of lots.

All times are local, EAT (UTC+3).[12]

Group A

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	Nigeria	3	2	1	0	7	5	+2	7	Knockout stage and 2019 FIFA U-17 World Cup
2	Angola	3	2	0	1	5	3	+2	6	Knockout stage and 2019 FIFA U-17 World Cup
3	Uganda	3	1	1	1	4	2	+2	4
4	Tanzania (H)	3	0	0	3	6	12	−6	0

Source: CAF
Rules for classification: Group stage tiebreakers
(H) Host.

14 April 2019