The 2026 UEFA European Under-19 Championship will be the 23rd edition of the UEFA European Under-19 Championship (73rd edition if the Under-18 and Junior era is also included), the annual international youth football championship organised by UEFA for the men's under-19 national teams of Europe. Wales, which were selected by UEFA on 26 September 2023, will host the tournament.[1][2] A total of 8 teams will play in the tournament, with players born on or after 1 January 2007 eligible to participate.
Same as previous editions held in even-numbered years, the tournament acted as the UEFA qualifiers for the FIFA U-20 World Cup. The top four teams of the tournament qualified for the 2027 FIFA U-20 World Cup in Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan as the UEFA representatives besides Azerbaijan who automatically qualified as co-host, with the fifth-placed team advance to the intercontinental play-off series.
Venues
Upon being awarded the tournament in 2023, the Football Association of Wales anticipated that the tournament would be hosted in 5 venues (Bangor, Colwyn Bay, Deeside, Denbigh and Wrexham), with a later release no longer stating Deeside or Colwyn Bay as a venue, and replacing it with Caernarfon. Colwyn Bay was named as a training ground for the tournament.[3]. In November 2025, a test event was organised, which involved matches in Denbigh, Wrexham, and Rhyl, the latter not among the initial five named locations but will act as a training venue.[4]
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 have the same number of points, and they met in the last round of the group and are tied after applying all criteria above (not used if more than two teams have the same number of points, or if their rankings are not relevant for qualification for the next stage);
Disciplinary points
Yellow card: −1 point;
Indirect red card (second yellow card): −3 points;
First match(es) will be played: June 2026. Source: UEFA Rules for classification: Group stage tiebreakers
Qualified teams for FIFA U-20 World Cup
The following five teams from UEFA qualified for the 2027 FIFA U-20 World Cup including Azerbaijan which qualified as co-host. while one team advanced to the inter-confederation play-offs.
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