[2] A total of eight teams competed in the final tournament, with players born on or after 1 January 1997 eligible to participate.

Same as previous editions held in even-numbered years, the tournament acted as the UEFA qualifiers for the FIFA U-20 World Cup.

This was decreased from the previous six teams, as FIFA decided to give one of the slots originally reserved for UEFA to the Oceania Football Confederation starting from 2017.

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:[5] All times were local, CEST (UTC+2).

[5] On 2 May 2016, the UEFA Executive Committee agreed that the competition would be part of the International Football Association Board's trial to allow a fourth substitute to be made during extra time.