2016 UEFA Women's Under-17 Championship

The 2016 UEFA Women's Under-17 Championship was the ninth edition of the UEFA Women's Under-17 Championship, the annual European international youth football championship contested by the women's under-17 national teams of UEFA member associations. Belarus, which were selected by UEFA on 20 March 2012, hosted the tournament between 4 and 16 May 2016. A total of eight teams played in the tournament, with players born on or after 1 January 1999 eligible to participate. Each match had a duration of 80 minutes, consisting of two halves of 40 minutes with a 15-minute half-time.

Same as previous editions held in even-numbered years, the tournament acted as the UEFA qualifiers for the FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup. The top three teams of the tournament qualified for the 2016 FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup in Jordan as the UEFA representatives.

Qualification
The national teams from 47 UEFA member associations entered the competition, which was a record total, including Andorra who entered a UEFA women's competition for the first time. With Belarus automatically qualified as hosts, the other 46 teams contested a qualifying competition to determine the remaining seven spots in the final tournament. The qualifying competition consisted of two rounds: the qualifying round, which took place in autumn 2015, and the elite round, which took place in spring 2016.

Qualified teams
The following eight teams qualified for the final tournament:

Final draw
The final draw was held on 6 April 2016, 11:30 FET (UTC+3), at the Victoria Hotel in Minsk, Belarus. The eight teams were drawn into two groups of four teams. There was no seeding, except that hosts Belarus were assigned to position A1 in the draw.

Venues
The tournament was hosted in five venues:

Squads
Each national team had to submit a squad of 18 players.

Match officials
A total of 6 referees, 8 assistant referees and 2 fourth officials were appointed for the final tournament.


 * Referees
 * Eleni Antoniou (Greece)
 * Ana Aguiar (Portugal)
 * 🇧🇬 Dimitrina Milkova (Bulgaria)
 * 🇰🇿 Elvira Nurmustafina (Kazakhstan)
 * 🇸🇪 Tess Olofsson (Sweden)
 * 🇷🇺 Vera Opeikina (Russia)


 * Assistant referees
 * 🇺🇦 Oleksandra Ardasheva (Ukraine)
 * Emilie Aubry (Switzerland)
 * 🇸🇮 Helena Buh (Slovenia)
 * 🇱🇻 Yelena Jermolajeva (Latvia)
 * Bianca H.P. Scheffers (Netherlands)
 * 🇵🇱 Kinga Seniuk-Mikulska (Poland)
 * 🇹🇷 Sibel Yamac Tamkafa (Turkey)
 * 🇰🇿 Kristina Yanuskevich (Kazakhstan)


 * Fourth officials
 * 🇧🇾 Volha Tsiareshka (Belarus)
 * 🇧🇾 Irina Turovskaya (Belarus)

Group stage
The final tournament schedule was confirmed on 7 April 2016.

The group winners and runners-up advanced to the semi-finals.

The teams were ranked according to points (3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 points for a loss). If two or more teams were equal on points on completion of the group matches, the following tie-breaking criteria were applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings:
 * Tiebreakers
 * 1) Higher number of points obtained in the group matches played among the teams in question;
 * 2) Superior goal difference resulting from the group matches played among the teams in question;
 * 3) Higher number of goals scored in the group matches played among the teams in question;
 * If, after having applied criteria 1 to 3, teams still had an equal ranking, criteria 1 to 3 were reapplied exclusively to the group matches between the teams in question to determine their final rankings. If this procedure did not lead to a decision, criteria 5 to 9 applied;
 * 1) Superior goal difference in all group matches;
 * 2) Higher number of goals scored in all group matches;
 * 3) If only two teams have the same number of points, and they were tied according to criteria 1 to 6 after having met in the last round of the group stage, their rankings were determined by a penalty shoot-out (not used if more than two teams had the same number of points, or if their rankings were not relevant for qualification for the next stage).
 * 4) Lower disciplinary points total based only on yellow and red cards received in the group matches (red card = 3 points, yellow card = 1 point, expulsion for two yellow cards in one match = 3 points);
 * 5) Drawing of lots.

All times were local, FET (UTC+3).

Knockout stage
In the knockout stage, penalty shoot-out was used to decide the winner if necessary (no extra time was played).

There was a third place match (i.e., FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup play-off) for this edition of the tournament as it was used as a qualifier for the FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup (since expansion to eight teams).

Semi-finals
Winners qualified for 2016 FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup.

Third place match
Winner qualified for 2016 FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup.

Goalscorers

 * 5 goals


 * Alessia Russo
 * Lorena Navarro


 * 4 goals


 * Niamh Charles
 * Vanessa Ziegler


 * 3 goals


 * Ellie Brazil
 * Hannah Cain
 * Anna Filbey
 * Klara Bühl
 * Sophie Haug


 * 2 goals


 * Grace Smith
 * Georgia Stanway
 * Ella Ann Toone
 * Marie Müller
 * Miljana Ivanović
 * Silvia Rubio


 * 1 goal


 * Karolina Zhitko
 * Tanja Pawollek
 * Benedetta Glionna
 * Frida Maanum
 * Ingrid Olsen
 * Emilia Ruud
 * Jovana Agbaba
 * Teodora Burkert
 * Tijana Filipović
 * Allegra Poljak
 * María Blanco
 * Natalia Ramos


 * 1 own goal


 * Sophia Kleinherne (playing against Spain)

Source: UEFA.com

Team of the Tournament

 * Goalkeepers
 * Tanja Djapić
 * Noelia Ramos


 * Defenders
 * Markéta Klímová
 * Tanja Pawollek
 * Caroline Siems
 * Laia Aleixandri
 * Ona Batlle
 * Lucía Rodríguez


 * Midfielders
 * Georgia Stanway
 * Janina Minge
 * Frida Maanum
 * Paula Fernández
 * Silvia Rubio


 * Forwards
 * Alessia Russo
 * Klara Bühl
 * Giulia Gwinn
 * Allegra Poljak
 * Candela Andújar

Source: UEFA Technical Report

Qualified teams for FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup
The following three teams from UEFA qualified for the FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup.


 * 1 Bold indicates champion for that year. Italic indicates host for that year.