2015 UEFA European Under-21 Championship

The 2015 UEFA European Under-21 Championship was the 20th edition of the UEFA European Under-21 Championship. The champions were Sweden.

 Qualification 

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.

 Qualified teams 
The following teams qualified for the 2015 UEFA European Under-21 Championship final tournament:

CountryQualified asPrevious appearances in tournament1only U-21 era (since 1978)Hosts11 (19785, 19805, 19885, 19905, 19925, 19945, 1996, 2000, 2002, 2007, 2011)Playoff winner (against Iceland) (1978, 1986, 1992, 2006, 2011)Playoff winner (against Croatia)12 (1978, 1980, 1982, 1984, 1986, 1988, 2000, 2002, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2013)Playoff winner (against Ukraine)11 (19822, 19842, 19882, 19902, 1992, 1996, 1998, 2004, 2006, 2009, 2013)Playoff winner (against Slovakia)17 (1978, 1980, 1982, 1984, 1986, 1988, 1990, 1992, 1994, 1996, 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2013)Playoff winner (against Netherlands) (1994, 1996, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2007)Playoff winner (against Spain) (19783, 19803, 19843, 19903, 20044, 20064, 2007, 2009)Playoff winner (against France) (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
 4 As Serbia and Montenegro
 5 As Czechoslovakia

 Venues and stadiums 
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).

PragueOlomoucUherské HradištěEden ArenaGenerali ArenaAndrův stadionStadion Miroslava ValentyCapacity: 20,800Capacity: 19,784Capacity: 12,566Capacity: 8,121180x180px180x180px180x180px200x200px
 Match officials 
The match officials of the tournament:
CountryRefereeAssistant refereesAdditional assistant referees FranceClément TurpinFrédéric CanoNicolas DanosFredy FautrelNicolas Rainville GreeceAnastasios SidiropoulosDamianos EfthymiadisPolychronis KostarasMichael KoukoulakisStavros Tritsonis NetherlandsDanny MakkelieMario DiksHessel SteegstraKevin BlomJochem Kamphuis PolandSzymon MarciniakPaweł SokolnickiTomasz ListkiewiczPaweł RaczkowskiTomasz Musiał RussiaSergei KarasevAnton AveryanovTikhon KaluginSergey LapochkinSergei Ivanov SpainJavier Estrada FernándezMiguel Martínez MunueraTeodoro Sobrino MagánAlejandro Hernández HernándezJesús Gil Manzano

CountryFourth officials Czech RepublicJan PatákOndrej Pelikan

 Seeding 
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.

Top seedsSecond seedsUnseeded  (assigned to A1)
  (assigned to B1) 





 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.

 Format of competitions 
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.

The provisional schedule was released by UEFA on 10 November 2014, and confirmed on 2 December 2014. 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:

 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.

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 

 Group B 

 Knockout stage 
In the knockout stage, extra time and penalty shoot-out were used to decide the winner if necessary.

 Bracket 

 Semi-finals 

 Final 

 Goalscorers 

 3 goals

  Jan Kliment

 2 goals

 Kevin Volland
 Marco Benassi
 João Mário
 John Guidetti
 Simon Tibbling

 1 goal

 Martin Frýdek
 Pavel Kadeřábek
 Ladislav Krejčí
 Uffe Bech
 Rasmus Falk
 Viktor Fischer
 Pione Sisto
 Jannik Vestergaard
 Jesse Lingard
 Nathan Redmond
 Emre Can
 Matthias Ginter
 Nico Schulz
 Andrea Belotti
 Domenico Berardi
 Ivan Cavaleiro
 Ricardo Horta
 Gonçalo Paciência
 Ricardo
 Bernardo Silva
 Filip Đuričić
 Oscar Hiljemark
 Isaac Kiese Thelin
 Robin Quaison

 Awards 

 Golden Boot 
The Golden Boot is given to the player who scored the most goals during the tournament.
Golden BootSilver BootBronze Boot Jan Kliment Kevin Volland John Guidetti

 Player of the tournament 
After the tournament the U21 EURO Player of the Tournament is selected by the UEFA Technical Observers.

Player of the tournament William Carvalho

 Team of the tournament 
After the tournament the Under-21 Team of the Tournament is selected by the UEFA Technical Observers.

PositionPlayerGoalkeeper José SáDefenders Victor Lindelöf Filip Helander Jannik Vestergaard Raphaël GuerreiroMidfielders William Carvalho Oscar Lewicki Nathan Redmond Bernardo Silva Ivan CavaleiroForward Kevin Volland

 Medal table 

 Qualification for the 2016 Summer Olympics 
TeamQualified onPrevious appearances in tournament1 (1908, 1912, 1920, 1948, 1952, 1960, 1972, 1992) (1912, 1928, 1936, 1952, 19562, 19722, 19842, 19882) (1928, 1996, 2004) (1908, 1912, 1920, 1924, 1936, 1948, 1952, 1988, 1992)

 1 Bold indicates champion for that year. Italic indicates host for that year. Statistics include all Olympic format (current Olympic under-23 format started in 1992).
 2 The team represented the United Team of Germany in 1956, and the Federal Republic of Germany (i.e., West Germany) in 1972, 1984 and 1988.

 Broadcasting 
Countries who are not covered by a local broadcaster had the matches broadcast on YouTube.

+UEFA countriesTerritoryRights holderRefMa Chaîne SportArena SportViasatArena SportČTDR, ViasatViasatElisaMa Chaîne SportARD, ZDF, Sport1CharltonRAIViasatViasatMa Chaîne SportArena SportArena SportViasatRTP, SportTVDolce SportArena SportTV JOJTV4, TV12Ma Chaîne SportBT Sport

+Rest of the worldTerritoryRights holderRefbeIN SportsSporTVTSN, RDSCaribbeanESPNCCTVMNC MediaWOWOWLatin AmericaESPNAstroSub-Saharan AfricaMa Chaîne SportPPTVESPN

 Ambassador 
Former Czech Republic midfielder Pavel Nedvěd was the ambassador for the tournament.

 References 

 Other websites 

 UEFA European Under-21 Championship – History: 2015
 Official website (Czech)
 Official programme
 Tournament review

Category:2015 in Europe
Category:2015 in association football
Category:Football in the Czech Republic
Category:June 2015 events