2017 UEFA European Under-21 Championship

2017 UEFA European Under-21 Championship
Mistrzostwa Europy U-21 w Piłce Nożnej 2017
Tournament details
Host country	Poland
Dates	16–30 June 2017
Teams	12 (from 1 confederation)
Venue(s)	6 (in 6 host cities)
Final positions
Champions	Germany (2nd title)
Runners-up	Spain
Tournament statistics
Matches played	21
Goals scored	65 (3.1 per match)
Attendance	244,085 (11,623 per match)
Top scorer(s)	Saúl (5 goals)
Best player(s)	Dani Ceballos
	← 2015 2019 →

The 2017 UEFA European Under-21 Championship (also known as UEFA Under-21 Euro 2017) was the 21st edition of the UEFA European Under-21 Championship, a biennial international youth football championship organised by UEFA for the men's under-21 national teams of Europe. The final tournament was hosted in Poland for the first time, after their bid was selected by the UEFA Executive Committee on 26 January 2015 in Nyon, Switzerland.^[1] The tournament took place from 16–30 June 2017.^[2] Players born on or after 1 January 1994 were eligible for the tournament.

In March 2012, UEFA announced that the competition would take place in even numbered years from 2016 onwards.^[3] In September 2013, UEFA announced its intention to continue holding the final tournament in odd numbered years following a request from its member national football associations.^[4] On 24 January 2014, UEFA confirmed that the final tournament would be held in 2017 and that it would be expanded from 8 teams to 12.^[5]

Hosts[]

The hosts were announced at a meeting of the UEFA Executive Committee in Nyon on 26 January 2015. In late April 2014, the Polish Football Association very strongly indicated the country has high chances to host the tournament. Bidding to welcome Europe's best youth teams was one of the reasons for Poland's withdrawal from the UEFA Euro 2020 race.^[6]

Qualification[]

A total of 53 UEFA nations entered the competition (Gibraltar did not enter, as per usual), and with the hosts Poland qualifying automatically, the other 52 teams competed in the qualifying competition to determine the remaining 11 spots in the final tournament.^[7] The qualifying competition, which took place from March 2015 to November 2016, consisted of two rounds:^[8]

Qualifying group stage: The 52 teams are drawn into nine groups – seven groups of six teams and two groups of five teams. Each group is played in home-and-away round-robin format. The nine group winners qualify directly for the final tournament, while the four best runners-up (not counting results against the sixth-placed team) advance to the play-offs.
Play-offs: The four teams are drawn into two ties to play home-and-away two-legged matches to determine the last two qualified teams.

Qualified teams[]

The following 12 teams qualified for the final tournament.^[9]

Note: All appearance statistics include only U-21 era (since 1978).

Team	Method of qualification	Date of qualification	Finals appearance	Last appearance	Previous best performance
Poland	Hosts	26 January 2015	6th	1994	Quarter-finals (1982, 1984, 1986, 1992, 1994)
Portugal	Group 4 winners	6 September 2016	8th	2015	Runners-up (1994, 2015)
Denmark	Group 5 winners	6 September 2016	7th	2015	Semi-finals (1992, 2015)
England	Group 9 winners	6 October 2016	14th	2015	Winners (1982, 1984)
Slovakia	Group 8 winners	6 October 2016	2nd (8th incl. Czechoslovakia)	2000	Fourth place (2000)
Germany	Group 7 winners	7 October 2016	11th	2015	Winners (2009)
Czech Republic	Group 1 winners	7 October 2016	7th (13th incl. Czechoslovakia)	2015	Winners (2002)
Sweden	Group 6 winners	10 October 2016	8th	2015	Winners (2015)
Italy	Group 2 winners	11 October 2016	19th	2015	Winners (1992, 1994, 1996, 2000, 2004)
Macedonia	Group 3 winners	11 October 2016	1st	—	Debut
Spain	Play-off winners	15 November 2016	13th	2013	Winners (1986, 1998, 2011, 2013)
Serbia	Play-off winners	15 November 2016	6th (10th incl. Yugoslavia)	2015	Runners-up (2004, 2007) Winners (1978 as Yugoslavia)

Final draw[]

The final draw was held on 1 December 2016, 18:00 CET (UTC+1), at the ICE Congress Centre in Kraków.^[10]^[11] The 12 teams were drawn into three groups of four teams. The teams were seeded according to their coefficient ranking following the end of the qualifying play-offs, with the hosts Poland assigned to position A1 in the draw. Each group contained either the hosts or one team from Pot 1, one team from Pot 2, and two teams from Pot 3.^[12]^[13]

Hosts (Position A1)
Team	Coeff
Poland	28,102

Pot 1
Team	Coeff
Germany	39,037
Portugal	38,378

Pot 2
Team	Coeff
England	36,621
Spain	36,536
Denmark	35,590

Pot 3
Team	Coeff
Italy	35,546
Sweden	34,259
Czech Republic	33,690
Serbia	31,060
Slovakia	31,057
Macedonia	23,283

Venues[]

On 7 June 2016, Polish Football Association selected six venues:^[14]

Opening match and Group A	Group A	Group B
Lublin	Kielce	Gdynia
Arena Lublin	Kolporter Arena	Stadion GOSiR
Capacity: 15,500	Capacity: 15,500	Capacity: 15,139

Group B	Group C, semifinal, and Final	Group C and semifinal	Kielce Tychy Gdynia Kraków Lublin Bydgoszcz
Bydgoszcz	Kraków	Tychy
Kompleks Sportowy Zawisza	Stadion Cracovia	Stadion Miejski
Capacity: 20,247	Capacity: 15,016	Capacity: 15,300

Match officials[]

In February 2017, UEFA selected nine referees and their teams for this tournament.

Country	Referee	1st assistant referee	2nd assistant referee	Additional assistant referee	Additional assistant referee
Austria	Harald Lechner	Andreas Heidenreich	Maximilian Kolbitsch	Alexander Harkam	Julian Weinberger
Spain	Jesús Gil Manzano	Ángel Nevado Rodríguez	Diego Berbero Sevilla	Carlos del Cerro Grande	Juan Martínez Munuera
France	Benoît Bastien	Hicham Zakrani	Frédéric Haquette	Benoît Millot	Jérôme Miguelgorry
Germany	Tobias Stieler	Rafael Foltyn	Jan Seidel	Daniel Siebert	Benjamin Brand
Lithuania	Gediminas Mažeika	Vytautas Šimkus	Vytenis Kazlauskas	Donatas Rumšas	Robertas Valikonis
Netherlands	Serdar Gözübüyük	Bas van Dongen	Joost van Zuilen	Dennis Higler	Jeroen Manschot
Scotland	Bobby Madden	David McGeachie	Alastair Mather	Andrew Dallas	Donald Robertson
Slovakia	Ivan Kružliak	Tomáš Somoláni	Branislav Hancko	Peter Kráľovič	Filip Glova
Slovenia	Slavko Vinčić	Tomaž Klančnik	Andraž Kovačič	Rade Obrenović	Roberto Ponis

4th officials:

Country	4th official
Poland	Marcin Borkowski
Russia	Igor Demeshko
Israel	Roy Hassan
Poland	Michał Obukowicz

Squads[]

Each national team had to submit a squad of 23 players, three of whom had to be goalkeepers. If a player was injured or ill severely enough to prevent his participation in the tournament before his team's first match, he could be replaced by another player.^[8]

Group stage[]

The group winners and the best runner-up advanced to the semi-finals.

Tiebreakers

Teams were ranked according to points (3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 points for a loss), and if tied on points, the following tiebreaking criteria were applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings (Regulations Articles 18.01 and 18.02):^[8]

Points in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
Goal difference in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
Goals scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
If more than two teams are tied, and after applying all head-to-head criteria above, a subset of teams are still tied, all head-to-head criteria above are reapplied exclusively to this subset of teams;
Goal difference in all group matches;
Goals scored in all group matches;
Penalty shoot-out if only two teams had the same number of points, and they met in the last round of the group and are tied after applying all criteria above (not used if more than two teams had the same number of points, or if their rankings were not relevant for qualification for the next stage);
Disciplinary points (red card = 3 points, yellow card = 1 point, expulsion for two yellow cards in one match = 3 points);
UEFA coefficient for the final draw.

All times are local, CEST (UTC+2).^[15]

Group A[]

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	England	3	2	1	0	5	1	+4	7	Knockout stage
2	Slovakia	3	2	0	1	6	3	+3	6
3	Sweden	3	0	2	1	2	5	−3	2
4	Poland (H)	3	0	1	2	3	7	−4	1

Source: UEFA
Rules for classification: Group stage tiebreakers
(H) Host

16 June 2017

18:00

Sweden	0–0	England
	Report

Kolporter Arena, Kielce

Attendance: 11,672^[16]

Referee: Tobias Stieler (Germany)

16 June 2017

20:45

Poland	1–2	Slovakia
Lipski 1'	Report	Valjent 20' Šafranko 78'

Arena Lublin, Lublin

Attendance: 14,911^[16]

Referee: Serdar Gözübüyük (Netherlands)

19 June 2017

18:00

Slovakia	1–2	England
Chrien 23'	Report	Mawson 50' Redmond 61'

Kolporter Arena, Kielce

Attendance: 12,087^[16]

Referee: Gediminas Mažeika (Lithuania)

19 June 2017

20:45

Poland	2–2	Sweden
Moneta 6' Kownacki 90+1' (pen.)	Report	Strandberg 36' Une Larsson 41'

Arena Lublin, Lublin

Attendance: 14,651^[16]

Referee: Slavko Vinčić (Slovenia)

22 June 2017

20:45

England	3–0	Poland
Gray 6' Murphy 69' Baker 82' (pen.)	Report

Kolporter Arena, Kielce

Attendance: 13,176^[16]

Referee: Harald Lechner (Austria)

22 June 2017

20:45

Slovakia	3–0	Sweden
Chrien 5' Mihalík 22' Šatka 73'	Report

Arena Lublin, Lublin

Attendance: 11,203^[16]

Referee: Jesús Gil Manzano (Spain)

Group B[]

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	Spain	3	3	0	0	9	1	+8	9	Knockout stage
2	Portugal	3	2	0	1	7	5	+2	6
3	Serbia	3	0	1	2	2	5	−3	1
4	Macedonia	3	0	1	2	4	11	−7	1

Source: UEFA
Rules for classification: Group stage tiebreakers

17 June 2017