Host country Paraguay Champions São Paulo (1st title) Fourth place Lanús Dates 30 Jan 2016 – 14 Feb 2016 Champion São Paulo FC Third place Cortuluá | Venue(s) 4 (in 2 host cities) Runners-up Liverpool Matches played 22 Location Paraguay Teams 12 Goals scored 76 | |
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Similar 1991 Copa Libertadores Finals, 2005 Copa Libertadores Finals, 2007 Copa Libertadores Finals, 2009 Copa Libertadores Finals, 2008 Copa Libertadores Finals | ||
The 2016 U-20 Copa Libertadores (Spanish: 2016 Copa Libertadores Sub-20) was the 3rd edition of the U-20 Copa Libertadores, South America's premier under-20 club football tournament organized by CONMEBOL. The tournament, which returned after a four-year hiatus having been temporarily discontinued since 2012, was held in the cities of Asunción and Luque, Paraguay, from 30 January to 14 February 2016.
Contents
Teams
The competition was contested by 12 teams: the title holder, the champion club from each of the ten CONMEBOL member associations, and one additional team from the host association Paraguay.
Players must be born on or after 1 January 1996. However, each team may include a maximum of five players born on or after 1 January 1995.
Venues
The tournament was played in four venues in two cities, all in the Metropolitan Area of Asunción:
Group stage
The draw of the tournament was held on 15 January 2016, 12:00 local time, at the headquarters of the Paraguayan Football Association in Asunción. For the group stage, the 12 teams were drawn into three groups of four. The two teams from Paraguay (Cerro Porteño and Libertad) and the title holder (River Plate) were seeded.
In the group 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 were applied in the following order:
- Goal difference in all games;
- Goals scored in all games;
- Head-to-head result in games between tied teams;
- Penalty shoot-out (between two teams playing against each other in the last match of the group)
- Drawing of lots.
The winners of each group and the best runner-up among all groups advanced to the knockout stage.
All times local, PYST (UTC−3).
Knockout stage
In the knockout stage, the winners of the semi-finals (Group A winner vs. Group C winner; Group B winner vs. Best runner-up) advanced to the final, while the losers played in the third place match. If tied after regulation time, the penalty shoot-out was used to determine the winner (no extra time was played).