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2019 Africa U-20 Cup of Nations
Coupe d'Afrique des nations des moins de 20 ans 2019
Tournament details
Host country	Niger
Dates	2–17 February
Teams	8 (from 1 confederation)
Venue(s)	2 (in 2 host cities)
Final positions
Champions	Mali (1st title)
Runners-up	Senegal
Third place	South Africa
Fourth place	Nigeria
Tournament statistics
Matches played	16
Goals scored	31 (1.94 per match)
Top scorer(s)	Youssouph Mamadou Badji; Amadou Dia N'Diaye; (3 goals each)
Best player(s)	Moussa N'Diaye
Fair play award	Senegal
	← 2017 2021 →

The 2019 Africa U-20 Cup of Nations was the 15th edition of the Africa U-20 Cup of Nations (22nd edition if tournaments without hosts are included), the biennial international youth football tournament organized by the Confederation of African Football (CAF) for players aged 20 and below. Niger hosted the tournament, which took place from 2 to 17 February 2019. The tournament involved 8 teams, with Niger making their U-20 Africa Cup of Nations debut.^[1]

The top four teams of the tournament qualified for the 2019 FIFA U-20 World Cup in Poland as the CAF representatives. Mali won their first title, while the other qualified teams which finished second to fourth were Senegal, South Africa and Nigeria. Defending champions Zambia failed to qualify.

Qualification

The qualifiers were played between 30 March and 12 August 2018. At the end of the qualification phase, seven teams joined the hosts Niger.

Player eligibility

Players born 1 January 1999 or later are eligible to participate in the competition.

Qualified teams

The following eights teams qualified for the final tournament.^[2]

Note: All appearance statistics count only those since the introduction of final tournament in 1991.

Team	Appearance	Previous best performance
Niger (hosts)	1st	Debut
Burkina Faso	3rd	Fourth place (2003)
Burundi	2nd	Runners-up (1995)
Ghana	11th	Champions (1993, 1999, 2009)
Mali	12th	Third place (2003)
Nigeria	11th	Champions (2005, 2011, 2015)
Senegal	5th	Runners-up (2015, 2017)
South Africa	8th	Runners-up (1997)

Venues

The matches were played in two venues:

Niamey	Niamey Maradi	Maradi
Stade Général Seyni Kountché		Stade de Maradi
Capacity: 35,000		Capacity: 15,000

Squads

Each squad can contain a maximum of 21 players.^[3]^[4]^[5]

Draw

The draw of the final tournament was held on 13 December 2018, 21:00 WAT (UTC+1), at the Centre Technique de La Fenifoot in Niamey.^[6]^[7] The eight teams were drawn into two groups of four teams. The hosts Niger were seeded in Group A and allocated to position A1, while 2017 runners-up Senegal were seeded in Group B and allocated to position B1 (2017 champions Zambia did not qualify). The remaining six teams were seeded based on their results in the 2017 Africa U-20 Cup of Nations (final tournament and qualifiers), and drawn to any of the remaining three positions in each group.^[8]^[9]

Seeded	Pot 1	Pot 2
Niger (hosts) Senegal (2017 runners-up)	South Africa Mali	Ghana Nigeria Burkina Faso Burundi

Match officials

A total of 12 referees and 12 assistant referees were appointed for the tournament.^[10]^[11]

Referees

Pacifique Ndabihawenimana (Burundi)
Antoine Effa (Cameroon)
Souleiman Ahmed Djama (Djibouti)
Amin Mohamed Amin Mohamed Omar (Egypt)
Peter Waweru (Kenya)
Boubou Traoré (Mali)
Imtehaz Heeralall (Mauritius)
Ali Mohamed Moussa (Niger)
Jean Claude Ishimwe (Rwanda)
Hassan Mohamed Hagi (Somalia)
Kokou Ntalé (Togo)
Haythem Guirat (Tunisia)

Assistant Referees

Abdoulaziz Yacouba (Niger)
Jospin Luckner Malonga (Central African Republic)
Samir Gamal Saad Mohamed (Egypt)
Firmino Bassafim (Guinea-Bissau)
Lionel Hasinjarasoa (Madagascar)
Fabien Cauvelet (Mauritius)
Mustapha Akerkad (Morocco)
Mathew Kanyanga (Namibia)
Abdoul Aziz Moctar Saley (Niger)
Hamza Hagi Abdi (Somalia)
Dick Okello (Uganda)
Samuel Temesgin Atango (Ethiopia)

Group stage

The top two teams of each group advance to the semi-finals and qualify for the 2019 FIFA U-20 World Cup.

Tiebreakers

Teams are 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 tiebreaking criteria are applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings (Regulations Article 71):^[3]

Points in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
Goal difference in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
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;
Drawing of lots.

All times are local, WAT (UTC+1).^[12]

Group A

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	Nigeria	3	2	1	0	3	0	+3	7	Knockout stage and 2019 FIFA U-20 World Cup
2	South Africa	3	1	2	0	2	1	+1	5	Knockout stage and 2019 FIFA U-20 World Cup
3	Niger (H)	3	0	2	1	4	5	−1	2
4	Burundi	3	0	1	2	3	6	−3	1

Source: CAF
Rules for classification: Group stage tiebreakers
(H) Hosts

2 February 2019