2025 AFC U-17 Asian Cup

2025 AFC U-17 Asian Cup
كأس آسيا تحت 17 سنة 2025
Tournament details
Host country	Saudi Arabia
Dates	3–20 April
Teams	16 (from 1 confederation)
Venue(s)	4 (in 2 host cities)
Final positions
Champions	Uzbekistan (2nd title)
Runners-up	Saudi Arabia
Tournament statistics
Matches played	31
Goals scored	101 (3.26 per match)
Top scorer(s)	Asilbek Aliev; (5 goals)
Best player(s)	Sadriddin Khasanov
Best goalkeeper	Nematulloh Rustamjonov
Fair play award	Saudi Arabia
	← 2023 2026 →

The 2025 AFC U-17 Asian Cup was the 20th edition of the AFC U-17 Asian Cup (including previous editions of the AFC U-16 Championship and AFC U-17 Championship), the biennial international youth football championship organised by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) for the men's under-17 national teams of Asia.

On 24 May 2024, the AFC announced that Saudi Arabia would host the tournament.^[1] It was the first of the four consecutive AFC U-17 Asian Cup held in Saudi Arabia, preceding the 2026, 2027 and 2028 tournament, which also held in Saudi Arabia.

A total of 16 teams played in the tournament. The top eight teams of the tournament (=all quarter-finalists) qualified for the 2025 FIFA U-17 World Cup in Qatar as the AFC representatives, besides Qatar who qualified automatically as the host.^[2]

Japan were the title holders, having won their fourth title in 2023. They were eliminated in the quarter-finals by Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia then lost the final to Uzbekistan, who also defeated them in the group stage, despite the latter having two players dismissed in the first half.

Qualification

Qualification matches were played between 19 and 27 October 2024.^[3]

Qualified teams

A total of 16 teams including hosts Saudi Arabia qualified for the final tournament.

Team^[4]	Qualified as	Appearance	Previous best performance
Saudi Arabia	Hosts	12th	Champions (1985, 1988)
North Korea	Group A winners	12th	Champions (2010, 2014)
Afghanistan	Group B winners	3rd	Group stage (2018, 2023)
South Korea	Group C winners	16th	Champions (1986, 2002)
Thailand	Group D winners	13th	Champions (1998)
Uzbekistan	Group E winners	11th	Champions (2012)
Japan	Group F winners	17th	Champions (1994, 2006, 2018, 2023)
Australia	Group G winners	8th	Semi-finals (2010, 2014, 2018)
United Arab Emirates	Group H winners	8th	Runners-up (1990)
Yemen	Group I winners	8th	Runners-up (2002)
Tajikistan	Group J winners	5th	Runners-up (2018)
China	Best runners-up	16th	Champions (1992, 2004)
Vietnam	2nd best runners-up	9th	Fourth place (2000)
Indonesia	3rd best runners-up	7th	Fourth place (1990)
Iran	4th best runners-up	13th	Champions (2008)
Oman	5th best runners-up	11th	Champions (1996, 2000)

¹ Bold indicates champions for that year. Italic indicates hosts for that year.

Venues

Four stadiums in two host cities were used for the tournament.

Jeddah
Prince Abdullah Al Faisal Sports City Stadium	King Abdullah Sports City Hall Stadium
Capacity: 25,000	Capacity: 1,000

Location of the stadiums of the 2025 AFC U-17 Asian Cup (Saudi Arabia) Jeddah Taif
Taif
King Fahd Sports City Stadium	Okadh Sport Club Stadium
Capacity: 20,000	Capacity: 1,500

Match officials

Referees

Daniel Elder
Dong Fangyu
Jin Jingyuan
Venkatesh Ramachandran
Morteza Mansourian
Koki Nagamine
Mahmoud Al-Sawalmeh
Mohammed Al-Shammari
Faisal Al-Balawi
Kim Yu-jeong
Abdullo Davlatov
Torphong Somsing

Assistant referees

Andrew Meimarakis
Bao Mengxiao
Wu Mingfeng
Lam Nai Kei Sam
Vairamuthu Parasuraman
Alireza Moradi
Isao Nishihashi
Hamza Sa'Adeh
Ali Alachkar
Muhammad Farhan Bin Abdul Aziz
Ashraf Abuzubaida
Yousuf Al-Shamari
Faisal Al-Qahtani
Ibrahim Al-Dakhil
Kuo Chan-yu
Vafo Karaev
Nuannid Dornjangreed

Draw

The draw of the final tournament was held on 23 January 2025 at the AFC House in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The 16 teams were drawn into four groups of four teams, with the teams seeded according to their final rankings across the previous three editions (2016, 2018, 2023), with the hosts Saudi Arabia automatically seeded and assigned to Position A1 in the draw.^[5]

Pot 1	Pot 2	Pot 3	Pot 4
Saudi Arabia (hosts) Japan South Korea Iran	Australia Yemen Uzbekistan Tajikistan	Thailand Vietnam Oman Afghanistan	China Indonesia North Korea United Arab Emirates

Squads

Players born between 1 January 2008 and 31 December 2010 were eligible to compete in the tournament. Each team had to register a squad of minimum 18 players and maximum 23 players, minimum three of whom must have been goalkeepers (Regulations Articles 26.3).^[6]

Group stage

The group winners and runners-up advanced to the quarter-finals and qualified for the 2025 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 tie-breaking criteria were applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings:^[6]

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;
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);
Drawing of lots.

All match times are in local time, AST (UTC+3).

Group A

Pos	Team	Pld	W	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	Uzbekistan	3	3	0	9	2	+7	9	Knockout stage and FIFA U-17 World Cup
2	Saudi Arabia (H)	3	2	1	5	5	0	6	Knockout stage and FIFA U-17 World Cup
3	China	3	1	2	4	4	0	3
4	Thailand	3	0	3	2	9	−7	0

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

3 April 2025

18:00

Uzbekistan	4–1	Thailand
Khasanov 2' Sarsenbaev 13' Aliev 80' Shukurullaev 85'	Report	Mexes 40'

Okadh Sport Club Stadium, Taif

Attendance: 118

Referee: Mahmoud Al-Sawalmeh (Jordan)

3 April 2025