2023 South American U-15 Championship

2024 South American Under-15 Football Championship
CONMEBOL Sudamericano Sub-15; Bolivia 2023
Tournament details
Host country	Bolivia
Dates	4–19 October
Teams	10 (from 1 confederation)
Venue(s)	1 (in 1 host city)
Final positions
Champions	Paraguay (3rd title)
Runners-up	Ecuador
Third place	Argentina
Fourth place	Chile
Tournament statistics
Matches played	24
Goals scored	66 (2.75 per match)
Top scorer(s)	Zidane Yáñez (5 goals)
	← 2019 2025 →

Last updated November 06, 2024

The 2023 South American U-15 Championship was the 10th edition of the South American U-15 Championship (Spanish : CONMEBOL Sudamericano Sub-15), the biennial international youth football championship organised by CONMEBOL for the men's under-15 national teams of South America. It was held in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia between 4 and 19 October 2024.^[1]^[2]

The tournament was originally planned to be held between 17 November to 3 December 2023,^[3]^[4] but on 16 October 2023 CONMEBOL announced that it would be postponed to August–September 2024 due to unforeseen circumstances.^[5]^[6] The tournament was postponed for a second time on 30 August 2024, this time to be held in October 2024.^[1]^[7]

The South American U-15 Championship returns after 5 years because the COVID-19 pandemic forced CONMEBOL to cancel the tournament in 2021.^[8]

Brazil were the defending champions but failed to retain their title by being eliminated in the group stage. The final was contested by Paraguay and Ecuador, with the Paraguayans winning their third title after beating the Ecuadorians 4–3 on penalties.^[9] Argentina finished third after defeating Chile 2–1 in the play-off for third place.

Teams

All ten CONMEBOL member national teams entered the tournament. After two editions with invited UEFA teams, the tournament will once again contested by South American teams only.^[6]

Team	Appearance	Previous best top-4 performance
Argentina	10th	Champions (2017)
Bolivia (hosts)	10th	Fourth place (2005)
Brazil (holders)	10th	Champions (2005, 2007, 2011, 2015, 2019)
Chile	10th	Fourth place (2007, 2013)
Colombia	10th	Runners-up (2004, 2011, 2013)
Ecuador	10th	Third place (2009)
Paraguay	10th	Champions (2004, 2009)
Peru	10th	Champions (2013)
Uruguay	10th	Runners-up (2007, 2015)
Venezuela	10th	None

Squads

Each team was required to register a squad of 22 players, including at least 3 goalkeepers.^[10] After the postponement of the tournament from 2023 to 2024, CONMEBOL decided to maintain the original age group of players, so this edition was an U16 tournament. Players born on or after 1 January 2008 were eligible to compete in the tournament.^[6]

Venues

Santa Cruz	Santa Cruz class=notpageimage\| Location of host city.
Estadio Ramón Tahuichi Aguilera
Capacity: 35,180^[11]

Bolivia was named as host country of the tournament during the CONMEBOL Council meeting on 30 September 2022.^[4]^[12] This will be the fourth time that Bolivia host the tournament, having previously done so in 2005, 2009 and 2013.^[7] Bolivia was also initially selected to host the previous edition in 2019, however, the tournament had to be rescheduled in Paraguay as Bolivia was unable to host it due to the 2019 Bolivian protests.^[13]

Santa Cruz and Montero were initially considered as host cities with Estadio Ramón Tahuichi Aguilera and Estadio Gilberto Parada as venues.^[13]^[14]^[15] CONMEBOL later confirmed that the tournament would only be played in Santa Cruz, with Montero being ruled out.^[1]^[16]

Match officials

On 18 September 2024, CONMEBOL announced a total of 11 referees and 22 assistant referees appointed for the tournament.^[17] The refereeing team for each match consisted of a main referee and his two assistants plus a fourth official.^[18]

Nazareno Arasa [ es ]
- Assistants: Pablo Acevedo and Sebastián Osudar^[†]
Javier Revollo
- Assistants: William Medina and Jesús Antelo
Rodrigo de Lima
- Assistants: Alex Ang and Thiago Farinha^[†]
Manuel Vergara and Claudio Díaz^[†]
- Assistants: Alan Sandoval and Carlos Poblete
José Ortiz^[†]
- Assistants: Cristian Aguirre and Javier Patiño

Robert Carrera
- Assistants: Mauricio Lozada and Alexis Acosta^[†]
Giancarlos Juliadoza
- Assistants: Julio Aranda, José Villagra and Esteban Testta^[†]
Jordi Espinoza^[†]
- Assistants: Diego Jaimes, José Castillo and Alberth Alarcón
Javier Feres
- Assistants: Héctor Bergaló and Marcos Rosamen^[†]
Alejandro Velásquez
- Assistants: José Martínez and Erizon Nieto

Note

^
^† Non-FIFA referees.

Draw

The draw of the tournament wIll be held on 12 September 2024, 12:00 PYT (UTC−4), at the CONMEBOL headquarters in Luque, Paraguay.^[19] The ten involved teams will be drawn into two groups of five. The hosts Bolivia 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 2019 South American U-15 Championship (shown in brackets).

Seeded	Pot 1	Pot 2	Pot 3	Pot 4
Bolivia (9) (Hosts, assigned to A1) Brazil (1) (Title holders, assigned to B1)	Argentina (2) Paraguay (3)	Colombia (4) Ecuador (5)	Venezuela (6) Peru (8)	Uruguay (10) Chile (11)

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.^[20]

The draw resulted in the following groups:^[21]

Group A
Pos	Team
A1	Bolivia
A2	Paraguay
A3	Colombia
A4	Peru
A5	Chile

Group B
Pos	Team
B1	Brazil
B2	Argentina
B3	Ecuador
B4	Venezuela
B5	Uruguay

Group stage

The top two teams in each group advanced to the final stage.

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):^[10]

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, BOT (UTC−4), as listed by CONMEBOL.^[22]

Group A

Pos	Team	Pld	W	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	Chile	4	4	0	8	1	+7	12	Final stage
2	Paraguay	4	3	1	7	1	+6	9	Final stage
3	Colombia	4	1	3	4	4	0	3^{[lower-alpha 1]}
4	Bolivia (H)	4	1	3	2	9	−7	3^{[lower-alpha 1]}
5	Peru	4	1	3	2	8	−6	3^{[lower-alpha 1]}

Source: CONMEBOL
Rules for classification: Tiebreakers
(H) Hosts
Notes:

1 2 3 Tied on head-to-head points. Head-to-head goal difference: Colombia +2, Bolivia 0, Peru −2.

4 October 2024