The 2017 FIFA U-17 World Cup was the 17th FIFA U-17 World Cup, a biennial international football tournament contested by men's under-17 national teams. Organised by FIFA, the tournament took place in India from 6 to 28 October 2017, after the country was awarded the hosting rights on 5 December 2013. This marked the first time India hosted a FIFA tournament and the fifth Asian country to host U-17 World Cup after China in 1985, Japan in 1993, South Korea in 2007 and the United Arab Emirates in 2013. The attendance for this World Cup was a record 1,347,133, surpassing China's record in 1985 with 1,230,976.
The matches were played in six stadiums in six host cities around the country, with the final taking place at the Salt Lake Stadium in Kolkata. Twenty-three teams, besides the host India, managed to qualify for the tournament via participating in their various continental under-17 tournaments. In the first round of the tournament finals, the teams competed in round-robin groups of four for points, where the top two teams in each group along with the top four third placed teams would advance to the next round. These 16 teams will advance to the knockout stage, where three rounds of play decided which teams would participate in the final.
England won the U-17 World Cup for the first time after coming back from a two-goal deficit and beating Spain 5–2 in the final. This made England the second nation, after Brazil in 2003, to win both of FIFA's male age-capped (U-20 and U-17) World Cups in the same calendar year. (The women's equivalent of the feat was previously achieved once, by North Korea in 2016.) The official match ball used in the tournament was the Adidas Krasava.
Host selection The bidding procedure to host the tournament began on 17 March 2013, with the deadline falling on 15 November 2013. On 28 May 2013 it was announced by FIFA that Azerbaijan, India, the Republic of Ireland, and Uzbekistan had submitted bids for the hosting rights.
During the meeting of the FIFA Council on 5 December 2013, it was revealed that India had won the 2017 FIFA World Cup hosting rights.
Qualified teams As the hosts, India made their first ever appearance at the FIFA U-17 World Cup and their first appearance in the World Cup at any age level. As well as India, New Caledonia and Niger also made their debuts in the FIFA U-17 World Cup.
The previous U-17 World Cup title holders, Nigeria, failed to qualify for this edition, becoming the first nation since Switzerland in 2009 to fail to participate for the next edition of the FIFA U-17 World Cup after winning the previous edition.
A total of 24 teams qualified for the final tournament. In addition to India, the other 23 teams qualified from six separate continental competitions. Starting from 2017, the Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) received an additional spot (in total two spots), while UEFA dropped from having six spots to five.
ConfederationQualifying TournamentQualifier(s)AFC (Asia)Host Nation2016 AFC U-16 ChampionshipCAF (Africa)2017 Africa U-17 Cup of NationsCONCACAF (Central, North America and Caribbean)2017 CONCACAF U-17 ChampionshipCONMEBOL (South America)2017 South American Under-17 ChampionshipOFC (Oceania)2017 OFC U-17 ChampionshipUEFA (Europe)2017 UEFA European Under-17 Championship 1.Teams that will make their debut.
Organization Preparation
The six venues selected for the tournament were given major renovations prior to the FIFA U-17 World Cup. All the stadiums were given new bucket seats, new dressing rooms, new evacuation exits for fans, and new training grounds. Javier Ceppi, the Local Organising Committee director, stated that despite work starting slowly, things eventually became quicker. "It has been a long process in the last two and half years. In India, it takes time to start things but once things start it kind of picks its own pace and in terms of implementation I always say that India is a very good country when it comes to implementation."
Emblem The official emblem for the tournament was revealed on 27 September 2016 at a hotel in Goa during the 2016 AFC U-16 Championship. According to the press release from FIFA, the emblem was designed "as a celebration of the country's richness and diversity of cultures, with the main elements of the Indian Ocean, the banyan tree, the kite and the starburst, which is an interpretation of the Ashoka Chakra, an integral part of the national identity."
Tickets
Sales of tickets for the FIFA U-17 World Cup began on 16 May 2017 during a function in New Delhi. Carles Puyol was present during the launch of the ticket sales as a special guest. General ticket sales officially began on 17 May 2017 at 19:11. The time was selected as a tribute to when Mohun Bagan defeated East Yorkshire Regiment in the IFA Shield in 1911, marking the first time an Indian football club defeated a British side in British India. Tickets for the tournament were sold in four phases: Phase one only sold tickets for categories 1 to 3 at each venue with a 60% discount while phase two allowed people to buy tickets for all categories, but only if you are a Visa card holder, at a 50% discount. Phase three allowed anyone to buy tickets with a 25% discount while phase four had tickets at full price. The attendance for matches breached the million mark in the final match of the Round of 16, which made India only the third nation after China and Mexico to register an attendance of over a million for the event. On 28 October 2017, in the 3rd place match-up between Brazil and Mali, India surpassed the existing record of 1,230,976 set in the 1985 FIFA U-16 World Championship edition in China The final attendance figures were 1,347,133.
Mascot
The mascot is "Kheleo", a Himalayan Clouded Leopard. He wears a jersey with the colours of white, yellow, green and orange. The Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports, Vijay Goel, stated: "Kheleo is young, vibrant, enthustiatic and a perfect representation of our country. He will help us to involve kids in football in a fun way".
Theme song The official theme song for the 2017 U17 World Cup was called 'Kar Ke Dikhla De Goal' () which roughly translates to 'Show that you can score a goal', composed by Pritam and written by Amitabh Bhattacharya. The official music video featured Indian football legend Bhaichung Bhutia along with Kerala Blasters co-owner Sachin Tendulkar and singer Babul Supriyo.
Venues After being awarded the hosting rights for the FIFA U-17 World Cup, eight locations were shortlisted: Bangalore, Guwahati, Kochi, Kolkata, Margao, Navi Mumbai, New Delhi and Pune. On 29 May 2015, Kochi, Mumbai, Kolkata, and Guwahati were provisionally selected as host locations and was informed two more would be provisionally approved from the list of Bengaluru, Chennai, Goa, New Delhi and Pune. On 27 October 2016, FIFA officially announced Guwahati, Kochi, Kolkata, Margao, Navi Mumbai and New Delhi as the official host cities for the FIFA U-17 World Cup.
KolkataKochiNew DelhiSalt Lake Stadium(Vivekananda Yuba Bharati Krirangan)Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium(Jawaharlal Nehru International Stadium)Jawaharlal Nehru StadiumCapacity: 66,600Capacity: 41,700Capacity: 58,000 Navi MumbaiGuwahatiMargaoDY Patil Stadium(Dr. DY Patil Stadium)Indira Gandhi Athletic StadiumFatorda Stadium(Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium)Capacity: 41,000Capacity: 23,800Capacity: 16,200
Draw The draw for the FIFA U-17 World Cup was held on 7 July 2017 at the Hotel Sahara Star in Mumbai, India. The draw was attended by former U-17 World Cup champions Nwankwo Kanu (Nigeria) and former U-20 World Cup champions Esteban Cambiasso (Argentina), as well as India senior international Sunil Chhetri and badminton player P. V. Sindhu.
The 24 teams were drawn into six groups of four teams, with hosts India being allocated to position A1. The rest of the teams were allocated into their respective pots based on a ranking which was built according to past performances during the last five FIFA U-17 World Cups. Importance was given to the most recent U-17 World Cups.
Pot 1Pot 2Pot 3Pot 4
Referees FIFA's Referees' Committee selected 21 referees, representing all six confederations, to officiate at the U-17 World Cup: Seven from UEFA, four from CONMEBOL, three each from the AFC, CAF, and CONCACAF, and one from the OFC. Interestingly, no referee from host country India were selected to officiate.
Confederation Referee Assistant referees Support referee AFC Muhammad Taqi Lee Tzu Liang Koh Min Kiat Ri Hyang-ok Ryuji Sato Toru Sagara Hiroshi Yamauchi Nawaf Shukralla Yaser Tulefat Ebrahim Saleh CAF Mehdi Abid Charef Albdelhak Etchiali Anouar Hmila Gladys Lengwe Hamada Nampiandraza Arsenio Marengula Yahaya Mahamadou Bamlak Tessema Weyesa Olivier Safari Mark Ssonko CONCACAF Jair Marrufo Frank Anderson Corey Rockwell Carol Chenard Ricardo Montero Octavio Jara Juan Carlos Mora John Pitti Gabriel Victoria Christian Ramírez CONMEBOL José Argote Luis Murillo Carlos López Claudia Umpierrez Enrique Cáceres Eduardo Cardozo Juan Zorrilla Sandro Ricci Emerson de Carvalho Marcelo Van Gasse Gery Vargas Juan Pablo Montaño Jose Alberto Antelo OFC Abdelkader Zitouni Folio Moeaki Bernard Mutukera Anna-Marie Keighley UEFA Ovidiu Hațegan Octavian Șovre Sebastian Gheorghe Kateryna Monzul Esther Staubli Bobby Madden David McGeachie Alastair Mather Anastasios Sidiropoulos Polychronis Kostaras Lazaros Dimitriadis Artur Soares Dias Rui Tavares Paulo Soares Anthony Taylor Gary Beswick Adam Nunn Clément Turpin Nicolas Danos Cyril Gringore Slavko Vinčić Tomaz Klancnik Andraz Kovacic
Squads
Each team's squad for the FIFA U-17 World Cup consisted of 21 players. Each participating national association had to confirm their final 21-player squad by 21 September 2017. A total of 504 players participated in the tournament. The squads were announced by FIFA on 26 September 2017.
Group stage The top two teams of each group and the four best third-placed teams advanced to the round of 16.
All times are local, IST (UTC+5:30).
Tiebreakers The rankings of teams in each group are determined as follows (regulations Article 17.7):
If two or more teams are equal on the basis of the above three criteria, their rankings are determined as follows:
Group A
Group B
Group C
Group D
Group E
Group F
Ranking of third-placed teams The four best teams among those ranked third are determined as follows (regulations Article 17.7):
Knockout stage In the knockout stages, if a match is level at the end of normal playing time, the match is determined by a penalty shoot-out (no extra time is played).
In the round of 16, the four third-placed teams were matched with the winners of groups A, B, C, and D. The specific match-ups involving the third-placed teams depend on which four third-placed teams qualified for the round of 16:
Third-placed teamsqualify from groups 1Avs 1Bvs 1Cvs 1Dvs A B C D 3C 3D 3A 3B A B C E 3C 3A 3B 3E A B C F 3C 3A 3B 3F A B D E 3D 3A 3B 3E A B D F 3D 3A 3B 3F A B E F 3E 3A 3B 3F A C D E 3C 3D 3A 3E A C D F 3C 3D 3A 3F A C E F 3C 3A 3F 3E A D E F 3D 3A 3F 3E B C D E 3C 3D 3B 3E B C D F 3C 3D 3B 3F B C E F 3E 3C 3B 3F B D E F 3E 3D 3B 3F C D E F 3C 3D 3F 3E
Bracket
Round of 16
Quarter-finals
Semi-finals
Third place play-off
Final
Awards The following awards were given at the conclusion of the tournament. They were all sponsored by Adidas, except for the FIFA Fair Play Award.
Golden BallSilver BallBronze Ball Phil Foden Sergio Gómez Rhian BrewsterGolden BootSilver BootBronze Boot Rhian Brewster(8 goals, 1 assist,540 minutes played) Lassana N'Diaye(6 goals, 0 assists,603 minutes played) Abel Ruiz(6 goals, 0 assists,618 minutes played)Golden Glove Gabriel BrazãoFIFA Fair Play Award
Final ranking As per statistical convention in football, matches decided in extra time are counted as wins and losses, while matches decided by penalty shoot-outs are counted as draws.
Goalscorers 8 goals
Rhian Brewster
6 goals
Lassana N'Diaye