The 2026 South American U-17 Championship will be the 21st edition of the South American U-17 Championship (Spanish: CONMEBOL Sudamericano Sub-17, Portuguese: CONMEBOL Sul-Americano Sub-17), the annual international youth football championship organised by CONMEBOL for the men's under-17 national teams of South America. It will be held in Paraguay from 3 to 19 April 2025.[1][2]
As in the previous edition, the tournament served as the CONMEBOL qualifiers for the FIFA U-17 World Cup. The top 7 teams qualified for the 2026 FIFA U-17 World Cup in Qatar as the CONMEBOL representatives.
Paraguay was confirmed as the host country for the tournament in February 2026.[3] This will be the fourth time that Paraguay hosts the tournament having previously done so in 1991, 1997 and 2015.
Teams
All ten CONMEBOL member national teams are eligible to enter the tournament.
Each team could register a squad of a minimum of 19 and a maximum of 23 players, including at least 3 goalkeepers. Players born between 1 January 2009 and 31 December 2011 (ages 15 to 17) were eligible to compete in the tournament (Regulations Articles 47 and 50).
Draw
The draw of the tournament will be held in March 2026 at the CONMEBOL headquarters in Luque, Paraguay with the ten teams being drawn into two groups of five. The hosts Colombia and defending champions Brazil were seeded into Group A and Group B respectively and assigned to position 1 in their group, while the remaining teams were placed into four "pairing pots" according to their results in the 2025 South American U-17 Championship (shown in brackets).
From each pot, the first team drawn was placed into Group A and the second team drawn was placed into Group B. In both groups, teams from pot 1 were allocated in position 2, teams from pot 2 in position 3, teams from pot 3 in position 4 and teams from pot 4 in position 5.
The top two teams in each group advanced to the final four, the next two teams advanced to the 5th–8th places play-offs and the two bottom teams were eliminated.
Tiebreakers
In the group stage, teams were ranked according to points earned (3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 points for a loss). If tied on points, tiebreakers would be applied in the following order (Regulations Article 20):
Head-to-head result between tied teams;
Points in head-to-head matches among the tied teams;
Goal difference in head-to-head matches among the tied teams;
Goals scored in head-to-head matches among the tied teams;
Goal difference in all group matches;
Goals scored in all group matches;
Fewest red cards received;
Fewest yellow cards received;
Drawing of lots.
All match times are local times, PYT (UTC−3), as listed by CONMEBOL.
The final stage will be played on a single-elimination basis and consists of the 5th–8th play-offs matches, semi-finals, third place match and final. If a match was level at the end of normal playing time, the winner would be decided directly by a penalty shoot-out (no extra time will be played).
All match times are local times, COT (UTC−5), as listed by CONMEBOL.
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Argentina 
Bolivia 
Brazil (holders)
Chile 
Colombia 
Ecuador 
Paraguay (hosts)
Peru 
Uruguay 
Venezuela