2015 South American U-20 Women's Championship Explained

Tourney Name:	South American Under-20 Women's Football Championship
Year:	2015
City:	Santos
Num Teams:	10
Confederations:	1
Venues:	2
Cities:	1
Count:	7
Matches:	26
Goals:	78
Prevseason:	2014
Nextseason:	2018

The 2015 South American Under-20 Women's Football Championship was the seventh edition of the South American Under-20 Women's Football Championship, the biennial international youth football championship organised by the CONMEBOL for the women's under-20 national teams of South America. The tournament was held in Santos, Brazil between 18 November and 3 December 2015.^[1]

Same as previous editions, the tournament acted as the CONMEBOL qualifiers for the FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup. The top two teams of the tournament qualified for the 2016 FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup in Papua New Guinea as the CONMEBOL representatives.^[2]

Brazil were crowned champions and maintained their streak of winning all seven editions so far, and qualified for the World Cup together with runners-up Venezuela, who qualified for the first time.^[3]

Teams

All ten CONMEBOL member national teams entered the tournament.^[1]

Team	Appearance	Previous best top-4 performance
		(2006, 2008, 2012)
		(2004, 2014)
(hosts & holders)		(2004, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2012, 2014)
		(2008, 2010)
		(2010)
		(2004)
		(2004, 2014)
		(2006)

Venues

The tournament was played in Santos.^[1] The stadiums were Santos's Estádio Urbano Caldeira (Vila Belmiro) and Portuguesa Santista's Estádio Ulrico Mursa (Marapé).

Squads

Players born on or after 1 January 1996 were eligible to compete in the tournament. Each team could register a maximum of 22 players (three of whom must be goalkeepers).^[4]

First stage

The draw of the tournament was held on 16 October 2015 during the CONMEBOL Executive Committee meeting at the Hyatt Hotel in Santiago, Chile.^[5] The ten teams were drawn into two groups of five teams. Each group contained one team from each of the five "pairing pots": Argentina–Brazil, Colombia–Paraguay, Peru–Uruguay, Chile–Ecuador, Bolivia–Venezuela. The schedule of the tournament was announced on 30 October 2015.^[6]

The top two teams of each group advanced to the final stage. The teams were ranked according to points (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:^[4]

Goal difference in all games;
Goals scored in all games;
Head-to-head result in games between tied teams;
Drawing of lots.

All times were local, BRST (UTC−2).

Group A

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Group B

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Final stage

If teams finished level of points, the final order would be determined according to the same criteria as the first stage, taking into account only matches in the final stage.^[4]

This was the first time Venezuela reached the top four in the tournament.

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