The 2021 LFE Ecros Football Championship, commonly referred to as LFE Ecros 2021 or simply Ecros 2021, will be the 33rd edition of the LFE Ecros Championship, the biannual international men's football championship of Ecros organised by the LFE. Tirol will host the tournament, scheduled from 14 June to 14 July 2021.
On 10 March 2016, the LFE announced that three countries had announced their intention to host the tournament before the deadline on 1 March: Karimun, Malgax and Tirol.
The host was selected on 30 November 2017.
Voting results
Country
Votes
Tirol
6
Karimun
2
Malgax
2
Abstention
0
Total
10
The LFE Executive Committee voted for the host in a secret ballot, with a simple majority required to determine the host. In the event of a tie, the bid with the fewest votes will be eliminated. Of the 16 members, the six representing Malgax, Karimun and Tirol were ineligible to vote, leaving a total of 10 voting members.
Draw
The final tournament draw took place in December 2020 in Balsan.
Teams were drawn consecutively into Groups A and B.
Tirol had a relatively broad choice of stadia that satisfied the LFE's minimum capacity requirements, including two which satisfy the recommendation for finals capacity.
The two largest stadia in the country, the Atempèpruch-Stadion and Federazion Arena were selected, with the prior being selected as the venue for the final. As the primary host city, Innsbruck held two stadia, the Atempèpruch-Stadion in addition to the Pontenord-Stadion. The three other host cities held one stadium each. Two stadia were selected for expansion, with the Alpin Arena in Porsenù to be expanded from a capacity of 28,000 to 45,000, under the provision that the recently promoted Alpin Louva team would in future use the stadium; the other stadium to be expanded was the Stadion Gherdëina in Santa Cristina Gherdëina, from a capacity of 35,000 to 50,000.
Each team had access to a "team base camp" for its stay between the matches. The teams trained and resided in these locations during the tournament, and travelled to games that took place away from their bases. The 8 teams validated their options with the LFE on 20 December 2020.
Teams were required to select a squad of 23 players, three of whom were required to be goalkeepers, with the final squad to be submitted to the LFE by 28 May 2021. If a member of the final squad suffered an injury prior to the teams first game that would keep him out of the entire tournament, another player could be called up to replace him.
Group stage
The teams finishing in the top two positions in each of the four groups progressed to the quarter-finals, while the bottom two teams were eliminated from the tournament.
All times are local, AMT-1.
Tiebreakers
For the three-game group stage of the tournament, where two or more teams in a group tied on an equal number of points, the finishing positions were determined by the following tie-breaking criteria in the following order:
number of points obtained in the matches among the teams in question
goal difference in the matches among the teams in question (if more than two teams finish equal on points)
number of goals scored in the matches among the teams in question (if more than two teams finish equal on points)
goal difference in all the group matches
number of goals scored in all te group matches
coefficient from qualifying competitions for the 2020 Terraconservan Cup
fair play conduct of the teams
drawing of lots
However, these criteria would not apply if two teams tied on points and goals scored played against each other in their final group match and no other team in the group finishes with the same points; in that case the tie would be broken by a penalty shootout.
The International Broadcast Centre was located in the Innsbruck media tower in Innsbruck, Tirol. Other centres were available in each location for nations whose groups were in non-Innsbruck based stadia.