The 2025 South American U-20 Championship was the 31st edition of the South American U-20 Championship (Spanish: CONMEBOL Sudamericano Sub-20, Portuguese: CONMEBOL Sul-Americano Sub-20), the biennial international youth football championship organised by CONMEBOL for the men's under-20 national teams of South America. It was held in Venezuela from 23 January to 16 February 2025.[1][2]
Same as previous editions, the tournament acted as the CONMEBOL qualifiers for the FIFA U-20 World Cup. The top four teams qualified for the 2025 FIFA U-20 World Cup in Chile as the CONMEBOL representatives. Chile automatically qualified as host (if Chile were among the top four teams, the fifth-placed team would have also qualified).[3]
Host nation and venues
Original host
Peru was originally announced as host country for the tournament by the CONMEBOL President Alejandro Domínguez during a CONMEBOL Council meeting held on 10 April 2024,[4][5][6] with Arequipa as host city.[7][8] The Peruvian Football Federation had submitted to CONMEBOL in March 2024 the bid to organize this competition.[9]
With three venues required as a minimum by CONMEBOL,[10] four possible venues were initially considered: Estadio Monumental UNSA, Estadio Melgar, Estadio La Tomilla and Estadio Municipal de Sachaca, with the latter three needing considerable improvements to host the matches.[11][12] In October 2024, it was announced that Lima would be added as host city due to the lack of suitable stadiums in Arequipa, with the first stage planned to be held in Lima and the final stage to take place in Arequipa.[13][14][15]
On 13 November 2024, local Peruvian media announced that Peru had lost the hosting of the tournament, presumably due to institutional instability in the Peruvian Football Federation as a result of the arrest of its president Agustín Lozano a week earlier.[16][17]
Venezuela, the new host
On 15 November 2024, CONMEBOL announced some changes to its competition calendar for 2025 in a letter sent to its member associations, confirming Venezuela as the new host of the South American U-20 Championship, replacing Peru.[18][2] In this way, Venezuela had to relinquish the organization of the 2025 South American U-17 Championship for which it had previously been designated, leaving the task to Colombia.[19]
Each team could register a maximum of 23 and a minimum of 19 players, including at least 3 goalkeepers. Players born between 1 January 2005 and 31 December 2009 (ages 16 to 20) were eligible to compete in the tournament (Regulations Articles 47 and 50).[3]
Draws
Original draw
The original draw of the tournament was held on 29 October 2024, 12:00 PYT (UTC−3), at the CONMEBOL headquarters in Luque, Paraguay.[24] The ten involved teams will be drawn into two groups of five. The hosts Peru 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 final position in the 2023 South American U-20 Championship (shown in brackets).[24]
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.[25]
The original draw resulted in the following groups:[26]
As a result of the change of the host country, CONMEBOL decided to hold a second draw on 6 December 2024 under the same procedures as the previous one, but with the seedings and pots updated.[27]
On 10 December 2024, CONMEBOL announced a total of 11 referees and 22 assistant referees appointed for the tournament, including an Italian refereeing team from UEFA.[29] This is the second time that a UEFA refereeing team will participate in the South American U-20 Championship because of the continuation of the UEFA–CONMEBOL memorandum of understanding signed in February 2020, which included a referee exchange programme since 2021.[30][31][32]
The top three teams in each group advanced to the final stage.
Tiebreakers
In the first 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):[3]
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 in VET (UTC−4), as listed by CONMEBOL.[33]
The ranking of teams in the final stage was determined using the same criteria as the first stage, taking into account only matches in the final stage, with the exception of red and yellow card counts which carry over from the first stage (Regulations Article 21).[3]
Since the final matchday were not scheduled to be played simultaneously (Regulations Article 18),[3] the order of the matches of the teams that still had a chance to win the title (Brazil and Argentina) was determined by drawing lots, with the Brazil vs Chile taking place before the Argentina vs Paraguay.[34]
All match times are in VET (UTC−4), as listed by CONMEBOL.[35][36]
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Brazil (13th title)
Argentina 
Colombia 
Paraguay 
