The2024 UEFA European Under-19 Championship qualification was a men's under-19 nationalfootball team competition that determined the seven teams joining the automatically qualified hostsNorthern Ireland in the2024 UEFA European Under-19 Championship final tournament.[1][2] Players born on or after 1 January 2005 are eligible to participate.
Russia was excluded from participating in the tournament due to theongoing invasion of Ukraine. Therefore, excluding hosts Northern Ireland, 53 teams entered this qualification competition, which consists of a qualifying round played in October–November 2023, followed by an elite round played in March 2024.[3]
The qualifying competition consisted of the following two rounds:
Qualifying Round: Apart fromPortugal, which receives a bye to the elite round as the team with the highest seeding coefficient, the remaining 52 teams are drawn in 13 groups of four teams. Each group was played in single round-robin format at one of the teams selected as hosts after the draw. The 13 group winners, 13 runners-up, and the third placed team with the best record against the first and second-placed teams in their group advance to the elite round.
Elite Round: The 28 teams are drawn into seven groups of four teams. Each group is played in single round-robin format at one of the teams selected as hosts after the draw. The seven group winners qualify for the final tournament.
The schedule of each group is as follows, with two rest days between each matchday (Regulations Article 20.04):[4]
In the qualifying and elite round, teams are ranked according topoints (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 Articles 14.01 and 14.02):[5]
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 (red card = 3 points, yellow card = 1 point, expulsion for 2 yellow cards in one match = 3 points)
UEFA coefficient ranking for the qualifying round draw
To determine the best third-placed team from the qualifying round, the results against the teams in fourth place are discarded. The following criteria are applied (Regulations Articles 15.01 and 15.02):[5]
Points
Goal difference
Goals scored
Disciplinary points (total 3 matches)
UEFA coefficient ranking for the qualifying round draw
Each group contained one team from Pot A, one team from Pot B, one team from Pot C, and one team from Pot D. Based on the decisions taken by the UEFA Emergency Panel, the following pairs of teams could not be drawn in the same group: Spain and Gibraltar, Belarus and Ukraine, Kosovo and Serbia, Kosovo and Bosnia & Herzegovina
To determine the best third-placed team from the qualifying round which advance to the elite round, only the results of the third-placed teams against the first and second-placed teams in their group are taken into account.
Updated to match(es) played on 21 November 2023. Source:UEFA Rules for classification: 1) points; 2) goal difference; 3) goals scored; 4) disciplinary points; 5) coefficient; 6) drawing of lots. Notes:
^abRanked on disciplinary points: Finland: –2, Republic of Ireland: –5
The draw for the elite round was held on 7 December 2023 at the UEFA headquarters inNyon, Switzerland.
The teams were seeded according to their results in the qualifying round.Portugal which received a bye to the elite round, were automatically seeded into Pot A. Each group contains one team from Pot A, one team from Pot B, one team from Pot C, and one team from Pot D. Winners and runners-up from the same qualifying round group could not be drawn in the same group, but the best third-placed team could be drawn in the same group as winners or runners-up from the same qualifying round group.[7]
Dženan Pejčinović
Denmark
France(H)
Iceland
Estonia
Norway
Latvia(H)
Hungary
Gibraltar
Scotland
Serbia
Andorra
Bulgaria(H)
Switzerland
Italy
Sweden(H)
Liechtenstein
North Macedonia
Poland(H)
Kazakhstan
Spain
Georgia(H)
Cyprus
Moldova
Ukraine
Kosovo
Slovakia
Malta(H)
Turkey(H)
Lithuania
Greece
Belarus
36'
Israel
Croatia(H)
Faroe Islands
Armenia
Czech Republic(H)
Romania
Finland
San Marino
Netherlands
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Luxembourg(H)
Azerbaijan
Austria
Montenegro(H)
England
Wales
Belgium
Slovenia
Republic of Ireland
Albania(H)
Portugal(H)