The 17^th UEFA U21 Championship will be held in Sweden during June. The tournament, which includes players born on or after 1 January 1986, will be contested by 8 teams 7 of whom have spent the past two years competing for the right to play (Sweden qualified automatically as hosts).

Belarus, Finland, Italy, Germany, England, Serbia and Spain will travel to Sweden to compete for the title. The initial stages of qualification saw over 50 countries play in ten groups. They were whittled down to fourteen with the four best-placed runners up joining the ten group winners in play-off’s to reach the finals.

The seedings were done according to qualification. Sweden as hosts were first along with Spain who had the best qualifying record. It would have been the Netherlands as reigning champions but they failed to qualify. England and Italy followed with the next bets qualifying records with the remaining four teams making up the groups.

Group A sees the hosts play serious challengers Italy along with Belarus and Serbia. Group B would be classed as the ‘group of death’ in any other tournament with Finland being drawn with Germany, Spain and England. The matches will be played in Malmo, Helsingborg, Gothenburg and Halmstad with the final on 29^th June.

The Netherlands failure to qualify denied them the opportunity to complete a hat-trick of victories, something that Italy managed during the 1990’s. With England and Spain the only other former winners to have qualified, the field is open for any of the countries to grab the glory. The highest scorer to have qualified is Germany’s Rouwen Hennings and with the player of the tournament award having produced some famous names over the years, the shop window for young European talent is going to be watched with interest by managers throughout the continent. Rudi Voller, Mark Hateley, Laurent Blanc, Davor Suker, Luis Figo and Petr Cech have all been previous recipients and have gone on European and international fame.

The coaches can have a massive impact on youth tournaments and three of the bigger names with involvement this time around are Pierluigi Casiraghi of Italty, German coach Horst Hrubesch and England’s Stuart Pearce. All with considerable international experience, each will harbour thoughts of ultimate victory but with a strong Spanish team led by Juan Ramon Lopez Caro, it will not be an easy path to the final for anyone.

With the finals still a month away, all of the coaches will be praying that the final week or so of the domestic season do not bring any injury headaches. The strength of competition is anticipated to be as good as any previous tournament and the team with the best chance is likely to have all of it’s key players fit and available.