2015 UEFA European Under-21 Championship
20th edition of the UEFA European Under-21 Championship / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The 2015 UEFA European Under-21 Championship was the 20th edition of the UEFA European Under-21 Championship, a biennial international football competition for men's under-21 national teams organised by UEFA. The final tournament was hosted for the first time in the Czech Republic from 15 to 30 June 2015, after their bid was selected by the UEFA Executive Committee on 20 March 2012 in Istanbul.[1]
Mistrovství Evropy ve fotbale hráčů do 21 let 2015 | |
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Tournament details | |
Host country | Czech Republic |
Dates | 17–30 June |
Teams | 8 (from 1 confederation) |
Venue(s) | 4 (in 3 host cities) |
Final positions | |
Champions | Sweden (1st title) |
Runners-up | Portugal |
Tournament statistics | |
Matches played | 15 |
Goals scored | 37 (2.47 per match) |
Attendance | 162,994 (10,866 per match) |
Top scorer(s) | Jan Kliment (3 goals) |
Best player(s) | William Carvalho |
← 2013 2017 → |
Players born on or after 1 January 1992 were eligible to participate in the competition.[2] Fifty-two teams participated in a qualification tournament, taking place between March 2013 and October 2014, to determine the seven teams that would join the final tournament hosts. Holders Spain were not able to defend their title after being eliminated in the qualification play-offs by Serbia.
In the final, played at the Eden Arena in Prague, Sweden defeated Portugal 4–3 in a penalty shootout, after a goalless draw at the end of extra-time. In doing so, the Swedish team won their first title in this competition, having previously lost the 1992 final, and secured their first-ever title in UEFA youth competitions on the men's side.
By reaching the semi-finals, Denmark, Germany, Portugal and Sweden also qualified for the 2016 Summer Olympics men's football tournament in Brazil.[3]
Qualification for the final tournament of the 2015 UEFA European Under-21 Championship consisted of two rounds: a group stage and a play-off round. The group stage draw took place on 31 January 2013 in Nyon, Switzerland, and distributed 52 national teams into ten groups of five or six teams. Each group was contested in a double round-robin system, where teams played each other twice, at home and away. The ten group winners and the four best second-placed teams advanced to the play-off round, where they were paired by draw into seven two-legged ties. The play-off winners joined the Czech Republic in the final tournament.[4]
Qualified teams
The following teams qualified for the 2015 UEFA European Under-21 Championship final tournament:
Country | Qualified as | Previous appearances in tournament1 only U-21 era (since 1978) |
---|---|---|
Czech Republic | Hosts | 11 (19785, 19805, 19885, 19905, 19925, 19945, 1996, 2000, 2002, 2007, 2011) |
Denmark | Playoff winner (against Iceland) | 5 (1978, 1986, 1992, 2006, 2011) |
England | Playoff winner (against Croatia) | 12 (1978, 1980, 1982, 1984, 1986, 1988, 2000, 2002, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2013) |
Germany | Playoff winner (against Ukraine) | 11 (19822, 19842, 19882, 19902, 1992, 1996, 1998, 2004, 2006, 2009, 2013) |
Italy | Playoff winner (against Slovakia) | 17 (1978, 1980, 1982, 1984, 1986, 1988, 1990, 1992, 1994, 1996, 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2013) |
Portugal | Playoff winner (against Netherlands) | 6 (1994, 1996, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2007) |
Serbia | Playoff winner (against Spain) | 8 (19783, 19803, 19843, 19903, 20044, 20064, 2007, 2009) |
Sweden | Playoff winner (against France) | 6 (1986, 1990, 1992, 1998, 2004, 2009) |
- 1 Bold indicates champion for that year. Italic indicates host for that year.
- 2 As West Germany
- 3 As Yugoslavia
- 5 As Czechoslovakia
The competition was played at four venues in three host cities: Eden Arena and Generali Arena (in Prague), Andrův stadion (in Olomouc), and Stadion Miroslava Valenty (in Uherské Hradiště).[5][6]
Prague | Olomouc | Uherské Hradiště | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
Eden Arena | Generali Arena | Andrův stadion | Stadion Miroslava Valenty | |
50°4′3″N 14°28′18″E | 50°5′59.3″N 14°24′57.3″E | 49°36′0″N 17°14′54″E | 49°3′56″N 17°28′17.3″E | |
Capacity: 20,800 | Capacity: 19,784 | Capacity: 12,566 | Capacity: 8,121 | |
Six refereeing teams took charge of matches at the final tournament:[7]
Country | Referee | Assistant referees | Additional assistant referees |
---|---|---|---|
France | Clément Turpin | Frédéric Cano Nicolas Danos | Fredy Fautrel Nicolas Rainville |
Greece | Anastasios Sidiropoulos | Damianos Efthymiadis Polychronis Kostaras | Michael Koukoulakis Stavros Tritsonis |
Netherlands | Danny Makkelie | Mario Diks Hessel Steegstra | Kevin Blom Jochem Kamphuis |
Poland | Szymon Marciniak | Paweł Sokolnicki Tomasz Listkiewicz | Paweł Raczkowski Tomasz Musiał |
Russia | Sergei Karasev | Anton Averyanov Tikhon Kalugin | Sergey Lapochkin Sergei Ivanov |
Spain | Javier Estrada Fernández | Miguel Martínez Munuera Teodoro Sobrino Magán | Alejandro Hernández Hernández Jesús Gil Manzano |
Country | Fourth officials |
---|---|
Czech Republic | Jan Paták Ondrej Pelikan |
The draw for the final tournament took place at 18:00 CET on 6 November 2014, at the Clarion Congress Hotel in Prague. England, the highest-ranked team according to the competition coefficient rankings, and the host team, Czech Republic, were seeded and automatically assigned to separate groups. The second and third-ranked teams in the coefficient rankings, Italy and Germany, were also seeded and drawn into separate groups, while the four unseeded teams were drawn into the remaining positions of the two groups.[2][8]
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.[2]
The eight finalists were drawn into two groups of four teams. As hosts, Czech Republic were seeded in group A, while England, the best-ranked team in the UEFA coefficient ranking, were seeded in group B. In each group, teams played matches against each other in a round-robin system, and the top two teams advanced to the semi-finals.[9][10]
The provisional schedule was released by UEFA on 10 November 2014,[11] and confirmed on 2 December 2014.[12][13] All times are in Central European Summer Time (UTC+02:00).
After the conclusion of the group stage, the following four teams from UEFA qualified for the Olympic football tournament.
Tie-breaking
If two or more teams were equal on points on completion of the group matches, the following tie-breaking criteria were applied:[2]
- Higher number of points obtained in the matches played between the teams in question;
- Superior goal difference resulting from the matches played between the teams in question;
- Higher number of goals scored in the matches played between the teams in question;
If, after having applied criteria 1 to 3, teams still had an equal ranking, criteria 1 to 3 were reapplied exclusively to the matches between the teams in question to determine their final rankings. If this procedure did not lead to a decision, criteria 4 to 6 were applied.
- Superior goal difference in all group matches;
- Higher number of goals scored in all group matches;
- Position in the UEFA under-21 coefficient ranking used for the final draw.
If only two teams were tied (according to criteria 1–5) after having met in the last match of the group stage, their ranking would have been determined by a penalty shoot-out.
Group A
Pos | Team | Pld | W | D | L | GF | GA | GD | Pts | Group stage result |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Denmark | 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 4 | 0 | 6 | Advance to knockout stage and 2016 Summer Olympics |
2 | Germany | 3 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 5 | 2 | +3 | 5 | |
3 | Czech Republic (H) | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 6 | 3 | +3 | 4 | |
4 | Serbia | 3 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 7 | −6 | 1 |
Czech Republic | 1–2 | Denmark |
---|---|---|
Kadeřábek 35' | Report | Vestergaard 56' Sisto 84' |
Serbia | 0–4 | Czech Republic |
---|---|---|
Report | Kliment 7', 21', 56' Frýdek 59' |
Czech Republic | 1–1 | Germany |
---|---|---|
Krejčí 66' | Report | Schulz 55' |
Group B
Pos | Team | Pld | W | D | L | GF | GA | GD | Pts | Group stage result |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Portugal | 3 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 1 | +1 | 5 | Advance to knockout stage and 2016 Summer Olympics |
2 | Sweden | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 4 | |
3 | Italy | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 3 | +1 | 4 | |
4 | England | 3 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 4 | −2 | 3 |