The 2026 AFC U-17 Asian Cup will be the 21st edition of the AFC U-17 Asian Cup (including previous editions of the AFC U-17 Championship and AFC U-16 Championship), the annual international youth football championship organised by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) for the men's under-17 national teams of Asia. It will be the second of four consecutive AFC U-17 Asian Cup held in Saudi Arabia, succeeding the 2025 preceding the 2027 and 2028.
The top eight teams of the tournament will qualify for the 2026 FIFA U-17 World Cup in Qatar as the AFC representatives. Uzbekistan are the defending champions.
The host country of the 2026 U-17 World Cup (Qatar) and the top eight teams of the previous tournament in 2025 (including host Saudi Arabia) qualified automatically, while the other seven teams were decided by qualification. There was one round of qualification matches, which was held between 22–30 November 2025.
Qualified teams
The following 16 teams qualified for the tournament:
The 16 teams were placed into four groups of four teams, with seeding based on their performance in the previous three editions of the tournament (2018, 2023, and 2025). As hosts, Saudi Arabia were ranked as the top seeded team.[5]
The group winners and runners-up advanced to the quarter-finals and qualified for the 2026 FIFA U-17 World Cup. If Qatar (who automatically qualified for the 2026 FIFA U-17 World Cup as hosts) advance to the quarter-finals, the best third-placed team will also qualify for the FIFA U-17 World Cup.[6]
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:[7]
Goals scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
If more than two teams were tied, and after applying all head-to-head criteria above, a subset of teams were still tied, all head-to-head criteria above were 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);
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