2021 UEFA European Under-21 Championship

The 2021 UEFA European Under-21 Championship (also known as UEFA Under-21 Euro 2021) will be the 23rd edition of the UEFA European Under-21 Championship (26th edition if the Under-23 era is also included), the biennial international youth football championship organised by UEFA for the men's under-21 national teams of Europe. The tournament will be co-hosted by Hungary and Slovenia in 9–26 June 2021.

Initially, 12 teams were to play in the tournament, however on 6 February 2019, UEFA's Executive Committee increased this number to 16. Only players born on or after 1 January 1998 are eligible to participate.

Spain are the defending champions.

Host selection
The following associations indicated their interests to bid for the tournament:
 /  (joint bid)

Hungary and Slovenia were appointed as co-hosts at the UEFA Executive Committee meeting in Dublin, Republic of Ireland on 3 December 2018.

Qualification

All 55 UEFA nations entered the competition, and with the co-hosts Hungary and Slovenia qualifying automatically, the other 53 teams will compete in the qualifying competition to determine the remaining 14 spots in the final tournament. The qualifying competition consists of two rounds:
Qualifying group stage: The 53 teams are drawn into nine groups: eight groups of six teams and one group of five teams. Each group is played in home-and-away round-robin format. The nine group winners and the best runners-up (not counting results against the sixth-placed team) qualify directly for the final tournament, while the remaining eight runners-up advance to the play-offs.
Play-offs: The eight teams are drawn into four ties to play home-and-away two-legged matches to determine the last four qualified teams.

The draw for the qualifying group stage will be held on 11 December 2018. The qualifying group stage will take place from March 2019 to October 2020, while the play-offs will take place in November 2020.

Qualified teams
The following teams qualified for the final tournament.

Note: All appearance statistics include only U-21 era (since 1978).

Final draw
The final draw will be held in late 2020. The 16 teams will be drawn into four groups of four teams. The two hosts will be assigned to positions A1 and B1 in the draw, while the other teams will be seeded according to their coefficient ranking following the end of the qualifying stage, calculated based on the following:
2017 UEFA European Under-21 Championship final tournament and qualifying competition (20%)
2019 UEFA European Under-21 Championship final tournament and qualifying competition (40%)
2021 UEFA European Under-21 Championship qualifying competition (group stage only) (40%)

Venues
The Hungarian Football Federation proposed the following venues:
MOL Aréna Sóstó, Székesfehérvár
Haladás Sportkomplexum, Szombathely
Bozsik Stadion, Budapest
Ménfői úti Stadion, Gyírmót-Győr

The Slovenian Football Association proposed the following venues:
Stadion Z'dežele, Celje
Stožice Stadium, Ljubljana
Ljudski vrt, Maribor
Bonifika Stadium, Koper

The provisional schedule was announced on 6 November 2019. The opening match will be in Slovenia, while the final will be in Hungary.

Squads

Each national team have to submit a squad of 23 players, three of whom must be goalkeepers. If a player is injured or ill severely enough to prevent his participation in the tournament before his team's first match, he can be replaced by another player.

Group stage
The group winners and runners-up advance to the quarter-finals.

Tiebreakers
In the group stage, teams are ranked according to points (3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 points for a loss), and if tied on points, the following tiebreaking criteria are applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings (Regulations Articles 18.01 and 18.02):
Points in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
Goal difference in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
Goals scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
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;
Goal difference in all group matches;
Goals scored in all group matches;
Penalty shoot-out if only two teams have the same number of points, and they met in the last round of the group and are tied after applying all criteria above (not used if more than two teams have the same number of points, or if their rankings are not relevant for qualification for the next stage);
Disciplinary points (red card = 3 points, yellow card = 1 point, expulsion for two yellow cards in one match = 3 points);
UEFA coefficient ranking for the final draw.

All times are local, CEST (UTC+2).

Group A

Group B

Group C

Group D

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

Bracket

Quarter-finals

Semi-finals

Final

Broadcasting

Europe

Outside Europe 
TBA

References

External links

Under-21 Matches: 2021, UEFA.com

 
2021
Under-21 Championship
Category:Scheduled association football competitions
Category:2021 in youth association football
Category:International association football competitions hosted by Hungary
Category:International association football competitions hosted by Slovenia
Category:June 2021 sports events in Europe