Hosts to open European challenge

Iberian openers
The two other European representatives in the tournament, Portugal and Spain, have to wait until the following day to make their bows, when they face Yemen and Sierra Leone respectively.

Four groups
The 16 countries who have reached the finals have been divided into four groups of four, with the top two teams in each section progressing to the quarter-finals.

European victories
Despite the Iberian dominance of youth football in Europe the FIFA U17 crown has never been lifted by either the Portuguese or the Spanish. Indeed France, the 2001 winners in Trinidad and Tobago, and the Soviet Union, victors in Canada in 1987, are the only European nations to have won the tournament in its nine stagings so far.

Final honour
Whichever two teams reach the final in the Töölö stadium in Helsinki on 30 August will have the honour of becoming the first countries in history to play a major international final on artificial turf.

FIFA World Under-17 Championship match schedule:

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