UEFA European Under-21 Championship

[BobHelm]

With the football season proper over for a couple of months, it is time to cast the net farther!!

The competition is being held in Poland, from June 16th. until June 30th. June.
As usual in these competitions, the hosts get a bye through to the final event & that left the other 52 members of UEFA (Gibraltar didn't enter a team) to thrash it out for the 11 remaining spots. The sides were drawn into 7 groups. The 7 winners got a spot & the 4 best second sides played off for the final 2 places.

All that being done & dusted, the 12 qualifiers have been drawn into 3 groups of 4,,

Starts tonights!!

Sadly many of the games (especially the later stages) are being played at silly o'clock times as far as Thailand viewing goes..

[stattointhailand]

Are the times quoted "Local" (Poland) time. GMT or BST Bob?

[BobHelm]

The fixtures are from the BBC, so British Summer Time, so +6 hours for Thai time..

Sky Sports hold the rights for the European Under-21 Championships.

All England matches and most other prominent games are set to be covered on Sky Sports 1.

Sky Sports 2 and Sky Sports Mix will also be showing certain fixtures.

Have no idea if anyone in the area is showing games live though...

[stattointhailand]

Just seen this on UEFA.com website ....... might be worth trying if all else fails

Thanks to UEFA's broadcast partners all over the world, fans far beyond Poland will be able to watch the UEFA European Under-21 Championship as it happens, with games to be streamed on UEFA.com and UEFA.tv in in other territories.

[goodison]

Everton won the U20's World Cup and now save the penalty to keep us in U21's game against Sweden. Things looking good?
A tad biased? Then on another thread:
Errrr seen the fixtures for next Season? Start OK with home game against Stoke but then play away to City, Chelsea, home to Spurs and away to United. Will watch start of season from behind the settee.

[BobHelm]

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England should have fielded the under 20's squad by all accounts.
Very lacklustre display with only 1 shot on target in the 90 minutes. i know you don't want to peak too early in a competition, but you probably do need to turn up!! When a penalty save is the highlight of the display you know you need to improve!!

It started off brilliantly for the hosts - they scored inside a minute. It was mainly chances for Slovakia after that though. They equalised after 20 minutes & had a couple of opportunities to win the game before they finally did late on.

[BobHelm]

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Portugal scored before half time & then just before the end for a comfortable victory.
The Serbian goalie should be disappointed that he didn't do far better with both though..

Spain had to come through play off qualification to get to this stage. They just swept Macedonia aside in this game though. 2 nil up after just 15 minutes. They scored 4 spectacular goals (the other was a penalty) although just about anything hit towards the net seemed to go in as the Macedonian goalie had the sort of day that ruins a career..

[BobHelm]

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Germany scored either side of half time to comfortably ease past the Czech Republic. They even managed to miss a penalty on the way - a very un-Germanic situation..

Not a very inspired display by Denmark, who only registered 1 shot on target in the 90 minutes. 2 neat Italian goals (no distance, but evident striker skills involved) saw them through without too many difficulties.

With only the Group winner & the best of the 3 second placed sides progressing, this looks like a tough group to progress from...

Games this week...

[BobHelm]

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If England had any desire to get to the knock out stage then this was a 'must win' for them. A 3 game league is not very forgiving.. It didn't start off especially well for England & they went in at half time 1 nil down. They didn't improve much after half time, but just about did enough to win.
It means that they top the group, but, more importantly progress is entirely in their hand. If they beat hosts Poland in their last group game, they qualify for the semi-final..

Poland again took an early lead (5 minutes in) in a game but were behind going into the break. Both sides had second half chances in an end to end game but Sweden were denied the result by a fairly straightforward penalty decision just as the 90 minutes approached.

Just about the best possible result for the England side as a Swedish win would have left the probable winner of the group decided on a whole raft of complicated rules that makes Duckworth-Lewis seem almost understandable!!

[stattointhailand]

"Just about the best possible result for the England side as a Swedish win would have left the probable winner of the group decided on a whole raft of complicated rules that makes Duckworth-Lewis seem almost understandable!! "

If they don't improve the way they are playing, a draw against Poland and a DL decision is about the best they can hope for

I think it goes down to how many sugars the ref has in his tea at half time :-"

Is that guy Swift useless or what? talk about a liability, the rest would be better playing with 10 men

Looks like Pickford has been back to Everton between the two games ......... he's managed to learn how to completely misread crosses, get his feet tangled up, kick the ball to areas of the pitch where the nearest teammate was 20 yards away and throw the ball out to players who are closely marked ...... and all taught in the space of three days =D> =D> =D>

[BobHelm]

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Serbia went into a first half lead & held on until Macedonia were given a very soft hand ball penalty. That certainly galvanised Macedonia & they took the lead with a very well taken individual goal. Serbia managed to grab the draw in the dying minutes from a nicely taken free kick..

Dominant display by Spain against a Portuguese side who were on an undefeated in 21 run. Everton target, Sandro Ramirez, scored a nice & important second goal while they netted a third during added time.
The win all but puts Spain into the semi-final..

[BobHelm]

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The Czech Republic put a serious dent in Italy's chances of getting to the semi-final. They went ahead early in the first half. Italy managed to level with 10 minutes left but the Czech scored 2 more (the second a real cracker from distance) to complete a great result.

Demark have had a disappointing championship. They managed to keep Germany out for the first 45 minutes, but the final result was never really in doubt. Germany are now fully in charge of the group & look like they will qualify without breaking sweat!!

[stattointhailand]

Also means that if Portugal Italy or Cz Rep win their final game England HAVE to finish TOP of their group (second place will not be good enough). If Slovakia win their last game England have to beat Poland. If Slovakia/Sweden draw England can draw and still be top. If Sweden beat Slovakia by one goal it's Duckworth Lewis if England draw (probably be decided on disciplinary points )

[stattointhailand]

edit:- ooops, almost forgot the other possibility. If England Lose and Sweden/Slovakia draw it will be a THREE WAY tie for top spot between England/Poland/Slovakia ........... now that will be a dream for Mr Duckworth & Mr Lewis and all their mates :-" (goes down to added up transfer fees divided by the number of players in the squad with Christian names starting with "D" I think )

[BobHelm]

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England have their best performance so far to thank for reaching the semi-final. An early score settled their nerves & they went on to dominate a game where the hosts rarely threatened. They scored again with about 10 minutes to go & the game was truly over a couple of minutes later when Poland conceded a penalty & had a man sent off in the process.

Very disappointing final for Sweden. Not only were they the defending champions, but they had some fine form running into this contest. Indeed they forced Spain to seek second place qualification by their results in the qualification games.
Slovakia scored in the first minute & then went onto dominate the half, scoring a second before the break. It was more even in the second half but Slovakia were again the only side to score with 15 minutes remaining.
Slovakia are in with a chance of qualifying as the best second placed side. To do so they need both Portugal & Czech Republic/Italy not to win their last game though..

[BobHelm]

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It looks like the best second placed side who will go through to the semi-finals will be decided by goal difference. It was necessary for Portugal not only to win, but win well. They scored 2 in each half so had that part of the equation right, but will be disappointed to concede a goal in each half too.
As it stands now, they will go through to the finals unless either Italy (who are playing Germany) or the Czech Republic can win by 3 clear goals..

Spain came through the qualification process winning all 3 games while scoring 9 goals & conceding just 1. They only qualified after winning a 2nd. place qualification play off as they finished 2nd. to ex-World champions, Sweden. The difference between the 2 sides could not have been more reversed in these group games though..

[panmotor]

Bob, I think Slovakia have +3 goal difference to Portugal's +2 so, unless I am missing something, they are presently qualifying as best placed runner up. That's bad news for England as, if Slovakia go through, they will meet a group winner in the semis and I think that means (probably) Germany. This best placed runner up stuff really is a nonsense!!

[BobHelm]

You are right PM...
I can't even read the tables..

UEFA seem to have badly thought through how to increase the competition to 12 teams.
It would have been better to increase it to 16 & have 4 leagues of 4 with just the winners qualifying.
Or leave it at 8 & play straight knockout..
To think someone could actually get through to the semi-final just because their UEFA coefficient is higher than another team is rather poor, I think...

[BobHelm]

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Well Group C provided all the drama with the final matches.
The Czech Republic needed to win big in order to stand a chance of getting the highest placed second spot in the semis. Instead they found a Denmark side on fire. Their hero was 2 goal getter, 2 goal provider, Kenneth Zohore of Cardiff City.

Italy had the impossible task of beating a German side who had looked fairly imperious in their two opening games. However they were off colour in this one &, after having a goal disallowed for offside, allowed Italy to score after 30 minutes.

Germany & Italy are locked on 6 points at the top of Group C. However, because Italy have a better 'head to head' against the Germans, they emerge as group winners. This also means, with a better goal difference than the other 2nd. place finishers of +4. Germany qualify as the best 2nd. placed side..

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Germany beat England 1 nil just a couple of months ago so it is not looking an easy draw...mind you, Italy or Spain don't look anything like a push over either!!

[BobHelm]

As a friend of mine said to me yesterday
'You just want to hope that it doesn't come down to penalties'!

Saul Niguez of Atletico Madrid saw his value go up as the midfielder scored a hat trick. Roberto Gagliardini of Italy saw his go down as he got sent off with half an hour to go. Although Italy almost then immediately equalised, Spain went on to score 2 more for a pretty comprehensive victory.

It promises to be an interesting final...