As the defending champion of the FIFA U-20 World Cup does not gain automatic entry into the next biennial event, a curse purportedly affects the defending champions, preventing them from qualifying. This began in 1983, when West Germany, who won the championship in 1981, failed to qualify two years later. This also occurred in 1989 as defending champions Yugoslavia failed to qualify, 2001 with defending champions Spain, 2009 with two-time defending champions Argentina (having won in both 2005 and 2007), 2017 with defending champions Serbia (who also failed to qualify for the 2016 UEFA European Under-19 Championship), and most recently in 2019 with defending champions England. Notably, 2019 champions Ukraine would have failed to qualify for the 2021 tournament as Europe's qualifying tournament was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and nations were nominated based on ranking; however, the pandemic also caused the World Cup to be cancelled.