2017 UEFA European Under-21 Championship


The 2017 UEFA European Under-21 Championship 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. The tournament took place from 16 to 30 June 2017. 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. 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. 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.

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. That bid was one of the reasons for which Poland withdrew from UEFA Euro 2020 hosting.

Qualification

A total of 53 UEFA nations entered the competition, 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. The qualifying competition, which took place from March 2015 to November 2016, consisted of two rounds:
  • 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 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.
Note: All appearance statistics include only U-21 era.
TeamMethod of qualificationDate of qualificationFinals appearanceLast appearancePrevious best performance
Hosts1994
Group 4 winners2015
Group 5 winners2015
Group 9 winners2015
Group 8 winners
2000
Group 7 winners2015
Group 1 winners
2015
Group 6 winners2015
Group 2 winners2015
Group 3 winners—
Play-off winners2013
Play-off winners
2015
Winners

Final draw

The final draw was held on 1 December 2016, 18:00 CET, at the ICE Congress Centre in Kraków. 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.

Venues

On 7 June 2016, Polish Football Association selected six venues:
The capacities listed below were the tournament capacity and does not necessarily reflect the maximum capacity of the stadiums.
Opening match and Group AGroup AGroup B
LublinKielceGdynia
Arena LublinKolporter ArenaStadion GOSiR
Capacity: 15,247Capacity: 14,733Capacity: 14,769

Group BGroup C, semifinal, and FinalGroup C and semifinal
BydgoszczKrakówTychy
Kompleks Sportowy ZawiszaStadion CracoviaStadion Miejski
Capacity: 11,585Capacity: 14,715Capacity: 14,805


Match officials

In February 2017, UEFA selected nine referees and their teams for this tournament.
CountryReferee1st assistant referee2nd assistant refereeAdditional assistant refereeAdditional assistant referee
Austria

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.

Group stage

The group winners and the best runner-up advanced to the semi-finals.
;Tiebreakers
Teams were ranked according to points, and if tied on points, the following tiebreaking criteria were applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings :
  1. Points in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
  2. Goal difference in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
  3. Goals scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
  4. 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;
  5. Goal difference in all group matches;
  6. Goals scored in all group matches;
  7. 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 ;
  8. Disciplinary points ;
  9. UEFA coefficient for the final draw.
All times are local, CEST.

Group A


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Group B


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Group C


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Ranking of second-placed teams

The match-ups of the semi-finals depended on which runner-up qualified :
Best runner-up fromBest runner-up playsOther semi-final
Group AWinner Group BWinner Group A vs Winner Group C
Group BWinner Group AWinner Group B vs Winner Group C
Group CWinner Group AWinner Group B vs Winner Group C

Knockout stage

In the knockout stage, extra time and a penalty shoot-out were used to decide the winner if necessary.
On 2 May 2016, the UEFA Executive Committee agreed that the competition would be part of the International Football Association Board's trial to allow a fourth substitute to be made during extra time.

Semi-finals

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Goalscorers

There were 65 goals scored in 21 matches, for an average of goals per match.
;5 goals
;3 goals
;2 goals
;1 goal

Awards

The following awards were given at the conclusion of the tournament:

Team of the tournament

After the tournament, the Under-21 Team of the Tournament was selected by the UEFA Technical Observers.
PositionPlayer
Goalkeeper

Sponsorship