| Tourney Name: | South American Youth Football Championship |
| Year: | 2017 |
| Other Titles: | Campeonato Sudamericano Sub-20 “Juventud de America” Ecuador 2017 |
| Country: | Ecuador |
| Num Teams: | 10 |
| Confederations: | 1 |
| Venues: | 4 |
| Cities: | 4 |
| Count: | 8 |
| Matches: | 35 |
| Goals: | 91 |
| Top Scorer: | Rodrigo Amaral Bryan Cabezas Lautaro Martínez Marcelo Torres(5 goals each) |
| Prevseason: | 2015 |
| Nextseason: | 2019 |
The 2017 South American Youth Football Championship (Spanish; Castilian: '''''Campeonato Sudamericano Sub-20 ''Juventud de América'' Ecuador 2017'''''|italic=unset, Portuguese: '''''Campeonato Sul-Americano Sub-20 ''Juventude da América'' Equador 2017'''''|italic=unset|region=BR) was the 28th edition of the South American Youth Football Championship, a football competition for the under-20 national teams in South America organized by CONMEBOL. It was held in Ecuador from 18 January to 11 February 2017.[1] [2]
Uruguay were crowned champions, and together with Ecuador, Venezuela and Argentina, which were the top four teams of this tournament, qualified for the 2017 FIFA U-20 World Cup in South Korea.[3]
All ten CONMEBOL member national teams entered the tournament.
| Team | data-sort-type="number" | Appearance | Previous best performance |
|---|---|---|---|
| (holders) | 26th | (5 times, most recent 2015) | |
| 23rd | (2 times, most recent 1983) | ||
| 27th | (11 times, most recent 2011) | ||
| 28th | (1 time, 1975) | ||
| 26th | (3 times, most recent 2013) | ||
| (hosts) | 23rd | (3 times, most recent 2011) | |
| 26th | (1 time, 1971) | ||
| 27th | (2 times, most recent 1971) | ||
| 27th | (7 times, most recent 1981) | ||
| 24th | (1 time, most recent 1954) |
See also: 2017 South American Youth Football Championship squads.
Each team may register a squad of 23 players (three of whom must be goalkeepers).[4]
A total of eight venues in seven cities were proposed by FEF in July 2016,[5] days later Latacunga was added as a possible venue.[6] Tulcán was also nominated,[7] but was finally dismissed along with Cuenca, Machala and Portoviejo. Eventually, five venues were confirmed to host the matches, Estadio Bellavista in Ambato, Estadio Olímpico de Riobamba in Riobamba and Estadio La Cocha in Latacunga for the Group A; Estadio Olímpico de Ibarra in Ibarra for the Group B while the final stage took place at Estadio Olímpico Atahualpa in Quito.[8] [9] However, on 5 January 2017, Estadio La Cocha in Latacunga was dropped as refurbishment work was not completed in time.[10]
| Ambato | Ibarra | Quito | Riobamba | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Estadio Olímpico de Ibarra | Estadio Olímpico Atahualpa | Estadio Olímpico de Riobamba | ||
| -1.2446°N -78.6232°W | 0.3596°N -78.1183°W | -0.1775°N -78.4767°W | -1.6663°N -78.6604°W | |
| Capacity:16,467 | Capacity:17,260 | Capacity:35,258 | Capacity:14,400 |
The referees were:[11]
Darío Herrera
Assistants: Diego Bonfá and Cristian Navarro
Gery Vargas
Assistants: Juan Pablo Montaño and José Antelo
Anderson Daronco
Assistants: Rodrigo Correa and Guilherme Dias Camilo Roberto Tobar
Assistants: Raúl Orellana and José Retamal
Gustavo Murillo
Assistants: Humberto Clavijo and John Alexander León Carlos Orbe
Assistants: Juan Carlos Macías and Flavio Nall Mario Díaz de Vivar
Assistants: Milcíades Saldívar and Darío Gaona 
Diego Haro
Assistants: Raúl López Cruz and Víctor Ráez Jonhatan Fuentes
Assistants: Richard Trinidad and Gabriel Popovits
Jesús Valenzuela
Assistants: Jorge Urrego and Franchescoly Chacón
Originally, the draw was scheduled for 30 November 2016 in Montevideo but had to be postponed due to crash of LaMia Flight 2933 that occurred on 28 November 2016. It was rescheduled to be held on 7 December 2016, 11:00 PYT (UTC−3), at the CONMEBOL headquarters in Luque, Paraguay.[12] The ten teams were drawn into two groups of five. Ecuador (hosts) and Argentina (title holders) 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 2015 South American U-20 Championship (shown in brackets).
The top three teams in each group advanced to the final stage.
All times local, ECT (UTC−5).[13]
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When teams finished level of points, the final rankings were determined according to the same criteria as the first stage, taking into account only matches in the final stage.[4]
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Brian Mansilla Guilherme Arana Richarlison Damir Ceter Juan Camilo Hernández Herlin Lino Roberto Siucho Ronaldo Chacón Yangel Herrera Tomás Conechny Lucas Rodríguez Bruno Miranda Ronaldo Monteiro Ramiro Vaca Matheus Sávio Maycon Jorge Obregón Washington Corozo Renny Jaramillo Joel Quintero Jordan Sierra Sergio Córdova Josua MejíasThe following four teams from CONMEBOL qualified for the 2017 FIFA U-20 World Cup.
| Team | Qualified on | Previous appearances in tournament1 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| [14] | (1977, 1979, 1981, 1983, 1991, 1993, 1997, 1999, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2013, 2015) | ||
| [15] | (2001, 2011) | ||
| (2009) | |||
| (1979, 1981, 1983, 1989, 1991, 1995, 1997, 1999, 2001, 2003, 2005, 2007, 2011, 2015) |
1 Bold indicates champion for that year. Italic indicates host for that year.