With the U21 Euros and U17 World Cup out of the way and the U20 World Cup yet to begin, it's now time for the youth tournament that no one really cares about, the U19 Euros. Eight teams will travel to Romania for a week and a half of football in a quest to bring home the coveted trophy (pictured above). Last year France, led by Kakuta and Griezmann, won the tournament while Thiago, Canales and Muniain's Spain were runners-up.

This year France failed to qualify but Spain are back and are, I would imagine, pretty strong favourites. The other teams are Romania, Republic of Ireland, Greece and Czech Republic in Group A while Belgium, Serbia and Turkey join Spain in Group B. The format is the same as the U21 Euros. The age limit is 1 January 1992.


Players To Watch

Accurate and up-to-date squad information has been difficult to find - even UEFA's site doesn't have the final squads for each team - but here are a few players who are likely to feature that could be worth keeping an eye on:

Álvaro Morata (Spain) - Top scorer for Real Madrid's reserves last season, has already made a few first team appearances.

Paco Alcácer (Spain) - Top scorer with six goals at last year's U17 Euros. Plays for Valencia and has of course been dubbed the new Villa.

Ignasi Miquel (Spain) - Defender from Arsenal, has made a few first team appearances. Peterstorey has said good things about him, and once described him as "Pique + pace".

Gerard Deulofeu (Spain) - The next La Masia superstar, and the one player I'm looking forward to watching more than any other. I watched him play in last season's Copa del Rey Juvenil de Fútbol final against Espanyol and was very impressed. He's a winger/striker who has blistering pace, beats players with ease and scores goals, and at least the one time I saw him he was very direct and quite physical - very un-Barcelona like really. Unfortunately it seems like he has mostly been used as a sub in the qualifying matches so I hope he isn't stuck on the bench for most of the tournament.

Pablo Sarabia (Spain) - Attacking midfielder/winger who joined Getafe from Real Madrid just a few weeks ago for a reported €3m. Was Spain's second top scorer in qualifying behind Isco who isn't in the squad since he's going to the U20 World Cup.

Marnick Vermijl (Belgium) - As far as I can tell the only United player at the tournament. McGinty and Brady appeared for RoI in some of the early qualifying matches but weren't in the squad for the elite qualification round so I assume won't be at the actual tournament.

Thorgan Hazard (Belgium) - Eden's younger brother. Supposed to be good.

Apostolos Vellios (Greece) - Striker who plays for Everton and has made a few first team appearances already.

Tomáš Kalas (Czech Republic) - Center back/right back who joined Chelsea last summer for a reported £5.2m.

Nenad Lukić (Serbia) - Attacking midfielder, Serbia's top scorer in qualification.

Laurenţiu Brănescu (Romania) - Goalkeeper who joined Juventus earlier this year. Captained Romania at the U17 Euros in March and has now been promoted to the U19s. I only watched one of Romania's matches at that tournament but I was very impressed by him, he seemed to dominate in the air and control his area in a way that very few goalkeepers do at U17 or even U19 level. Whether it was just one good match or whether he actually is that good remains to be seen.

credit:cafe

Group A

Romania
Czech Republic
Greece
Republic of Ireland

Group B

Serbia
Turkey
Spain
Belgium

Fixture

20/07/11

Serbia 2-0 Turkey
Spain 4-1 Belgium
Romania 1-3 Czech Republic
Greece 1-2 Republic of Ireland

23/07/11

Czech Republic 2-1 Republic of Ireland
Romania 0-1 Greece
Turkey 1-1 Belgium
Serbia 0-4 Spain

26/07/11

Republic of Ireland 0-0 Romania
Czech Republic 1-0 Greece
Belgium 1-1 Serbia
Turkey 3-0 Spain

Semi Finals

Czech Republic 4-2 Serbia
Spain vs Republic of Ireland

Final

Czech Republic

Top Scorer

4 Álvaro Morata (Spain)
3 Tomáš Přikryl (Czech Republic)
2 Anthony O'Connor (Republic of Ireland)


This post has been edited by legendofhafiz: Jul 30 2011, 01:36 AM

European youth tournaments are not that attractive. more interested to see how Asia team progress in world youth tournaments.

any live coverage for the games?

I will watch live on JSC+ Can't wait!!!

last night watch Spain v Belgium suddently match no telecast???
abondant coz of what?
Spain is leading 1-0 right?
i want to see Ignasi Miguel!!!

due to bad weather. Alvaro Morata scored for spain

after observation few game , u19 not really exciting like u23 previously.
just now czech game i watch 1st half then switch channel..bored.

maybe this tournament not my preference. will watch time to time.

only 2 groups?

Czech Republic just won 4-2 against Serbia

Prikyl,Kalas, Jelecek and Kalac for Czech

A brace from Despotovic