2011 began with 11 national teams qualified!

In this new year of FIFA U-20 World Cup there are eleven national teams ready for the Colombian edition due to the tournaments played by two of the six football confederations that make up FIFA (Association Football International Federation).

The first one was the Asian Football Confederation which held the 2010 AFC U-19 Championship between Febrary 2009 and October 2010, whose finals were played in China. The resulting qualified teams are, from champion to fourth; North Korea, Australia, South Korea and Saudi Arabia. Although Australia is not an Asian country but from Oceania continent, the AFC approved its move from the Ocean Football Confederation (OFC), of which it was a founding member, to improve the standard of Australian football and give the national team a fairer chance of qualifying for World Cups, as well as providing access to the AFC Champion League.

The second confederation which already selected its national teams for the FIFA U-20 World Cup Colombia 2011 is the UEFA that celebrated the Union of European Football Association U-19 Football Championship between September 2009 and July 2010 in France, qualifying six teams: from champion to sixth; France, Spain, England, Croatia, Portugal and Austria. 

The next confederation which will hold its qualifying tournament is Conmebol (South american Football Confederation) through the 2011 South American Youth Championship to be performed between January 16th and February 6th, 2011 in Peru. This tournament grants four places for the FIFA U-20 World Cup but this time one of them belongs to Colombia as the host country.

The Oceania Football Confederation (OFC), the Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football (Concacaf) and the Confederation of African Football (CAF) will hold their qualifying tournaments between March and April 2011 in New Zealand, Guatemala and Libya, respectively.

In summary, 11 out of 24 national teams are, so far, qualified for the FIFA U-20 World Cup Colombia 2011. They are, in alphabetical order:


Australia           Austria             Colombia            Croatia             England             France                  North Korea     Portugal           Spain                   Saudi Arabia   South Korea               
   

Once all the qualified teams will be know in next April, the championship draw will take place in that month in Cartagena, Colombia.