2023 UEFA European Under-21 Championship qualification
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| Tournament details | |
|---|---|
| Dates | 25 March 2021 – 27 September 2022 |
| Teams | 53 (from 1 confederation) |
| Tournament statistics | |
| Matches played | 255 |
| Goals scored | 778 (3.05 per match) |
| Top scorer |  Gonçalo Ramos (12 goals) |
← 2021 2025 → | |
The 2023 UEFA European Under-21 Championship qualifying competition was a men's under-21 football competition to determine the 14 teams that would be joining the automatically qualified co-hosts Romania and Georgia in the 2023 UEFA European Under-21 Championship final tournament.
Apart from Romania and Georgia, all remaining 53 UEFA member national teams entered the qualifying competition. Players born on or after 1 January 2000 were eligible to participate.
Tiebreakers
The qualifying competition consisted of the following two rounds:
- Qualifying group stage: The 53 teams were drawn into nine groups: eight groups of six teams and one group of five teams. Each group was played in home-and-away round-robin format. The nine group winners and the best runner-up (not counting results against the sixth-placed team) qualified directly for the final tournament, while the remaining eight runners-up advanced to the play-offs.
- Play-offs: The eight teams were drawn into four ties to play home-and-away two-legged matches to determine the last four qualified teams.
In the qualifying group stage, teams were 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 were applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings (Regulations Article 14.01):[1]
- 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;
- Away goals scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
- If more than two teams were tied, and after applying all head-to-head criteria above, a subset of teams were still tied, all head-to-head criteria above were reapplied exclusively to this subset of teams;
- Goal difference in all group matches;
- Goals scored in all group matches;
- Away goals scored in all group matches;
- Wins in all group matches;
- Away wins in all group matches;
- Disciplinary points (red card = 3 points, yellow card = 1 point, expulsion for two yellow cards in one match = 3 points);
- UEFA coefficient ranking for the qualifying group stage draw.
To determine the best runner-up from the qualifying group stage, the results against the teams in sixth place were discarded. The following criteria were applied (Regulations Article 15.02):[1]
- Points;
- Goal difference;
- Goals scored;
- Away goals scored;
- Wins;
- Away wins;
- Disciplinary points;
- UEFA coefficient ranking for the qualifying group stage draw.
