2025 South American U-17 Championship
International football competition
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The 2025 South American U-17 Championship was the 20th edition of the South American U-17 Championship (Spanish: CONMEBOL Sudamericano Sub-17, Portuguese: CONMEBOL Sul-Americano Sub-17), the biennial international youth football championship organised by CONMEBOL for the men's under-17 national teams of South America. It was held in Colombia from 27 March to 12 April 2025.[1][2]
| CONMEBOL Sub 17 Colombia 2025 | |
|---|---|
| Tournament details | |
| Host country | Colombia |
| Dates | 27 March – 12 April |
| Teams | 10 (from 1 confederation) |
| Venue | 2 (in 2 host cities) |
| Final positions | |
| Champions |  Brazil (14th title) |
| Runners-up |  Colombia |
| Third place |  Venezuela |
| Fourth place |  Chile |
| Tournament statistics | |
| Matches played | 28 |
| Goals scored | 77 (2.75 per match) |
| Top scorer |  Thomás de Martis (6 goals) |
← 2023 2026 → | |
The tournament was originally scheduled to be held in Venezuela between 4–20 April 2024,[3][4] before CONMEBOL decided to move it to Colombia due to Venezuela becoming the host of the 2025 South American U-20 Championship.[1] Starting from this edition, the tournament will be played every year in line with the annual cycle implemented by FIFA for the FIFA U-17 World Cup.[5]
As a result of the expansion of the FIFA U-17 World Cup format, seven teams qualified for the U-17 World Cup from this edition onwards, an increase of three berths from the four CONMEBOL teams that previously qualified.[6] The top 7 teams qualified for the 2025 FIFA U-17 World Cup in Qatar as the CONMEBOL representatives.[7]
Defending champions Brazil successfully retained their title, defeating the hosts Colombia 4–1 on penalties following a 1–1 draw in the final, which earned them their fourteenth South American U-17 Championship title, the most in the tournament’s history.[8] These two teams and the next five best-placed teams — Venezuela, Chile, Paraguay, Argentina and Bolivia — qualified for the 2025 FIFA U-17 World Cup.
Format changes
After three years of evaluation and analysis of the proposal submitted in 2021,[9] FIFA announced on 14 March 2024 that its U-17 World Cup would be expanded to 48 teams and would be held annually from 2025, with Qatar being awarded the hosting rights for the next five tournaments.[6] Consequently, CONMEBOL had to modify the format of the South American U-17 Championship to define the 7 places it was awarded in the new slot allocation of the U-17 World Cup. The new format of the South American U-17 Championship is as follows:[5]
- The group stage remains unchanged, with the ten teams being divided into two groups of five teams each. Both groups are played on a single round-robin basis.
- The top two teams of each group advance to the semi-finals and qualify for the 2025 FIFA U-17 World Cup. Winners of semi-finals advance to the final to determine the champions while losers play the third place match.
- Teams placed third and fourth in each group will play for the 5th to 8th places, with the third placed teams playing the fourth placed teams in two semi-finals. The winners of the semi-finals play for fifth place and qualify for the 2025 FIFA U-17 World Cup while the losers play for seventh place, with the winner being the last team to qualify for the 2025 FIFA U-17 World.
- Teams placed fifth in the group stage will be eliminated.
Host and venues
Venezuela 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.[3][10]
However, on 15 November 2024, CONMEBOL announced some changes to its competition calendar for 2025 in a letter sent to its member associations, moving the South American U-17 Championship to Colombia to replace Venezuela,[1][2] which went on to host the 2025 South American U-20 Championship after CONMEBOL withdrew Peru's hosting rights of this tournament.[11]
CONMEBOL announced Montería and Cartagena as host cities on 6 February 2025, with the Estadio Jaraguay and the Estadio Jaime Morón León being the venues for the matches.[12]
| Montería | Cartagena | |
|---|---|---|
| Estadio Jaraguay | Estadio Jaime Morón León | |
| Capacity: 12,000[13] | Capacity: 17,500[14] | |
 |
 |
Teams
All ten CONMEBOL member national teams entered the tournament.
| Team | Appearance | Previous best performance |
|---|---|---|
| Argentina | 20th | Champions (4 times, most recent 2019) |
 Bolivia | 20th | Champions (1 time, 1986) |
| Brazil (holders) | 20th | Champions (13 times, most recent 2023) |
| Chile | 20th | Runners-up (3 times, most recent 2019) |
| Colombia (hosts) | 20th | Champions (1 time, 1993) |
 Ecuador | 19th | Runners-up (1 time, 2023) |
 Paraguay | 19th | Runners-up (1 time, 1999) |
 Peru | 20th | Fourth place (1 time, 2007) |
 Uruguay | 20th | Runners-up (3 times, most recent 2011) |
| Venezuela | 20th | Runners-up (1 time, 2013) |
Squads
Each team registered a squad of a minimum of 19 and a maximum of 23 players, including at least 3 goalkeepers. Players born between 1 January 2008 and 31 December 2010 (ages 15 to 17) were eligible to compete in the tournament (Regulations Articles 47 and 50).[7]
Draw
The draw of the tournament was held on 19 December 2024, 14:15 PYT (UTC−3), at the CONMEBOL headquarters in Luque, Paraguay.[15] The ten teams were drawn into two groups of five. The hosts Colombia 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 results in the 2023 South American U-17 Championship (shown in brackets).[15]
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.[16]
The draw resulted in the following groups:[17]
Group stage
The top two teams in each group advanced to the final four.
- Tiebreakers
In the group 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):[7]
- 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 local times, COT (UTC−5), as listed by CONMEBOL.[18][19]
Group A
| Pos | Team | Pld | W | D | L | GF | GA | GD | Pts | Qualification |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Colombia (H) |
4 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 5 | 2 | +3 | 9[a] | Final four and 2025 FIFA U-17 World Cup |
| 2 | Chile |
4 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 9 | 3 | +6 | 9[a] | |
| 3 | Argentina |
4 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 12 | 6 | +6 | 6[b] | 5th–8th places |
| 4 | Paraguay |
4 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 7 | 5 | +2 | 6[b] | |
| 5 | Peru |
4 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 17 | −17 | 0 |
Group B
| Pos | Team | Pld | W | D | L | GF | GA | GD | Pts | Qualification |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Brazil |
4 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 8 | 3 | +5 | 10 | Final four and 2025 FIFA U-17 World Cup |
| 2 | Venezuela |
4 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 5 | 3 | +2 | 7 | |
| 3 | Ecuador |
4 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 8 | 5 | +3 | 6 | 5th–8th places |
| 4 | Bolivia |
4 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 2 | 7 | −5 | 3 | |
| 5 | Uruguay |
4 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 8 | −5 | 2 |
| Brazil | 1–1 | Uruguay |
|---|---|---|
Ruan Pablo  50' |
Report | Azambuja 45+2' |
| Venezuela | 0–1 | Brazil |
|---|---|---|
| Report | Luis Eduardo 88' |
| Brazil | 3–2 | Ecuador |
|---|---|---|
|
Report |
|
Final stage
The final stage was played on a single-elimination basis and consisted of the 5th–8th play-offs matches, semi-finals, third place match and final. If a match was level at the end of normal playing time, the winner would be decided directly by a penalty shoot-out (no extra time will be played).[7]
All match times are local times, COT (UTC−5), as listed by CONMEBOL.[20][21]
5th–8th places
The 5th–8th semi-finals matchups were:
- Group A third place vs Group B fourth place
- Group B third place vs Group A fourth place
| 5th–8th semi-finals | Fifth place | |||||
| 8 April – Montería | ||||||
| Argentina | 3 | |||||
| 11 April – Montería | ||||||
| Bolivia | 0 | |||||
| Argentina | 1 (3) | |||||
| 8 April – Montería | ||||||
| Paraguay (p) | 1 (4) | |||||
| Ecuador | 0 (4) | |||||
| Paraguay (p) | 0 (5) | |||||
| Seventh place | ||||||
| 11 April – Montería | ||||||
| Bolivia | 1 | |||||
| Ecuador | 0 | |||||
5th–8th semi-finals
Winners qualified for the 2025 FIFA U-17 World Cup.
Seventh place match
Winner qualified for the 2025 FIFA U-17 World Cup.
Fifth place match
Final four
The semi-finals matchups are:
- Semi-final 1 (SF1): Group A winners vs Group B runners-up
- Semi-final 2 (SF2): Group B winners vs Group A runners-up
| Semi-finals | Final | |||||
| 9 April – Cartagena | ||||||
| Colombia | 5 | |||||
| 12 April – Cartagena | ||||||
| Venezuela | 1 | |||||
| Colombia | 1 (1) | |||||
| 9 April – Cartagena | ||||||
| Brazil (p) | 1 (4) | |||||
| Brazil | 1 | |||||
| Chile | 0 | |||||
| Third place | ||||||
| 12 April – Cartagena | ||||||
| Venezuela | 3 | |||||
| Chile | 0 | |||||
Semi-finals
Third place match
Final
Goalscorers
There were 77 goals scored in 28 matches, for an average of 2.75 goals per match.
6 goals
5 goals
4 goals
3 goals
Ruan Pablo
Alonso Olguín
Justin Lerma
2 goals
Uriel Ojeda- Joaquín Piñeyro
- Luis Eduardo
- Yastin Cuevas
Cristian Flórez- Edwin Quintero
Pedro Villalba
Yimvert Berroterán
1 goal
- Santiago Espíndola
- Bautista González
- Juan Cruz Meza
- Tomás Parmo
- Alex Verón
Santos García- Jesús Maraude
- Diego Pérez
- Angelo
- Dell
- Gustavo
- Kayke
- Luis Gustavo
- Martín Jiménez
- Matías Orellana
- Cristóbal Sepúlveda
- Zidane Yáñez
- Criss Macías
- Jhon Sevillano
- Ashley Trujillo
- Yeminson Urrutia
- Juan Riquelme Angulo
- Elías Legendre
- José Buhring
- Jhosías Campss
- Mauro Coronel
- Mauricio De Carvalho
- Tobías Jara
- Fernando Zayas
Nicolás Azambuja- Agustín Dos Santos
- Francisco Fernández
- Juan Boyer
- Marcos Maitán
- Juan Camilo Uribe
1 own goal
- Luis Eduardo (against Ecuador)
Gerson Castillo (against Argentina)
Qualified teams for FIFA U-17 World Cup
The following seven teams from CONMEBOL qualified for the 2025 FIFA U-17 World Cup in Qatar.
| Team | Qualified on | Previous appearances in FIFA U-17 World Cup1 |
|---|---|---|
| Brazil | 5 April 2025 | 18 (1985, 1987, 1989, 1991, 1995, 1997, 1999, 2001, 2003, 2005, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2013, 2015, 2017, 2019, 2023) |
| Venezuela | 2 (2013, 2023) | |
| Colombia | 6 (1989, 1993, 2003, 2007, 2009, 2017) | |
| Chile | 5 (1993, 1997, 2015, 2017, 2019) | |
| Paraguay | 8 April 2025 | 5 (1999, 2001, 2015, 2017, 2019) |
| Argentina | 15 (1985, 1989, 1991, 1993, 1995, 1997, 2001, 2003, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2013, 2015, 2019, 2023) | |
| Bolivia | 11 April 2025 | 2 (1985, 1987) |
- 1 Bold indicates champions for that year. Italic indicates hosts for that year.