2021 UEFA European Under-21 Championship

All 55 UEFA nations entered the competition, and, unlike the last competition, co-hosts Hungary and Slovenia qualified automatically, and the other 53 teams competed in the qualifying competition to determine the remaining 14 spots in the final tournament. The draw for the qualifying group stage was held on 11 December 2018.^[15] The qualifying group stage took place from March 2019 to October 2020, while the play-offs were set to take place in November 2020.^[3] The qualifying competition would originally consist of two rounds:^[3]

• Qualifying group stage: The 53 teams were drawn into nine groups: eight groups of six teams and one group of five teams. Each group was played in home-and-away round-robin format. The nine group winners and the best runner-up (not counting results against the sixth-placed team) qualified directly for the final tournament, while the remaining eight runners-up advance to the play-offs.
• Play-offs: The eight teams were drawn into four ties to play home-and-away two-legged matches to determine the last four qualified teams.

However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Europe which caused the postponement of matches in the qualifying group stage, UEFA announced on 17 June 2020 that the play-offs would be cancelled. Instead, the nine group winners and the five best runners-up (not counting results against the sixth-placed team) qualified for the final tournament.^[9][10][11]

The following teams qualified for the final tournament.

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

Team	Method of qualification	Date of qualification	Appearance	Last appearance	Previous best performance
Hungary	Co-hosts	3 December 2018	5th	1996 (quarter-finals)	Semi-finals (1986)
Slovenia	Co-hosts	3 December 2018	1st	—	Debut
Russia	Group 5 winners	13 October 2020	4th (7th incl. Soviet Union)	2013 (group stage)	Champions (1980, 1990)
Switzerland	Group 2 runners-up[^]	13 October 2020	4th	2011 (runners-up)	Runners-up (2011)
Netherlands	Group 7 winners	13 October 2020	8th	2013 (semi-finals)	Champions (2006, 2007)
Denmark	Group 8 winners	13 October 2020	9th	2019 (group stage)	Semi-finals (1992, 2015)
Spain	Group 6 winners	13 October 2020	15th	2019 (champions)	Champions (1986, 1998, 2011, 2013, 2019)
England	Group 3 winners	13 October 2020	16th	2019 (group stage)	Champions (1982, 1984)
France	Group 2 winners	12 November 2020	10th	2019 (semi-finals)	Champions (1988)
Italy	Group 1 winners	15 November 2020	21st	2019 (group stage)	Champions (1992, 1994, 1996, 2000, 2004)
Portugal	Group 7 runners-up[^]	15 November 2020	9th	2017 (group stage)	Runners-up (1994, 2015)
Czech Republic	Group 4 winners	17 November 2020	8th (14th incl. Czechoslovakia)	2017 (group stage)	Champions (2002)
Germany	Group 9 winners	17 November 2020	13th	2019 (runners-up)	Champions (2009, 2017)
Croatia	Group 4 runners-up[^]	17 November 2020	4th	2019 (group stage)	Group stage (2000, 2004, 2019)
Romania	Group 8 runners-up[^]	17 November 2020	3rd	2019 (semi-finals)	Semi-finals (2019)
Iceland	Group 1 runners-up[^]	24 November 2020	2nd	2011 (group stage)	Group stage (2011)

Notes

The final draw was held on 10 December 2020, 15:00 CET, at the UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland.^[16] The sixteen teams were drawn into four groups of four teams. The teams were seeded according to their coefficient ranking following the end of the qualifying stage, calculated based on the following:^[3]

• 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%)

The hosts Hungary and Slovenia were assigned to position A1 and B1 respectively in the draw, while the other fourteen teams were drawn to the other available positions in their group.^[17]

Pot 1

Team	Coeff[17]
Spain	40,620
Germany	38,490
France	37,147
England	36,846

Pot 2

Team	Coeff[17]
Italy	36,361
Denmark	36,088
Portugal	35,863
Netherlands	32,686

Pot 3

Team	Coeff[17]
Romania	32,198
Croatia	31,902
Czech Republic	29,648
Russia	29,162

Pot 4

Team	Coeff[17]
Switzerland	28,059
Iceland	26,071
Slovenia (position B1)	25,851
Hungary (position A1)	21,318

The group winners and runners-up advanced to the quarter-finals.

Tiebreakers

In the group stage, teams were 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 were applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings (Regulations Articles 18.01 and 18.02):^[3]

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 were tied, and after applying all head-to-head criteria above, a subset of teams were still tied, all head-to-head criteria above were 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 were tied after applying all criteria above (not used if more than two teams had the same number of points, or if their rankings were not relevant for qualification for the next stage);
8. Disciplinary points (red card = 3 points, yellow card = 1 point, expulsion for two yellow cards in one match = 3 points);
9. UEFA coefficient ranking for the final draw.

All times are local, CET (UTC+1) for matches between 24 and 27 March 2021, CEST (UTC+2) for matches between 28 and 31 March 2021.

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	Netherlands	3	1	2	0	8	3	+5	5[a]	Advance to knockout stage
2	Germany	3	1	2	0	4	1	+3	5[a]
3	Romania	3	1	2	0	3	2	+1	5[a]
4	Hungary (H)	3	0	0	3	2	11	−9	0

24 March 2021 (2021-03-24)

21:00

Hungary	0–3	Germany
	Report	Nmecha 61' Baku 66', 73'

MOL Aréna Sóstó, Székesfehérvár

Attendance: 0^{[25][note 1]}

Referee: Guillermo Cuadra Fernández (Spain)

24 March 2021 (2021-03-24)

21:00

Romania	1–1	Netherlands
Ciobanu 20'	Report	Schuurs 16'

Bozsik Aréna, Budapest

Attendance: 0^{[26][note 1]}

Referee: Sandro Schärer (Switzerland)

27 March 2021 (2021-03-27)

18:00

Hungary	1–2	Romania
Csonka 56'	Report	Mățan 70' Pașcanu 87'

Bozsik Aréna, Budapest

Attendance: 0^{[27][note 1]}

Referee: Lawrence Visser (Belgium)

27 March 2021 (2021-03-27)

21:00

Germany	1–1	Netherlands
Nmecha 84'	Report	Kluivert 48'

MOL Aréna Sóstó, Székesfehérvár

Attendance: 0^{[28][note 1]}

Referee: Maurizio Mariani (Italy)

30 March 2021 (2021-03-30)

18:00

Netherlands	6–1	Hungary
De Wit 42' Boadu 47' (pen.) Gakpo 58', 70' Botman 87' Brobbey 89'	Report	Bolla 65' (pen.)

MOL Aréna Sóstó, Székesfehérvár

Attendance: 0^{[29][note 1]}

Referee: Sandro Schärer (Switzerland)

30 March 2021 (2021-03-30)

18:00

Germany	0–0	Romania
	Report

Bozsik Aréna, Budapest

Attendance: 0^{[30][note 1]}

Referee: Guillermo Cuadra Fernández (Spain)

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	Spain	3	2	1	0	5	0	+5	7	Advance to knockout stage
2	Italy	3	1	2	0	5	1	+4	5
3	Czech Republic	3	0	2	1	2	4	−2	2
4	Slovenia (H)	3	0	1	2	1	8	−7	1

24 March 2021 (2021-03-24)

18:00

Slovenia	0–3	Spain
	Report	Puado 53' Villar 54' Miranda 89'

Ljudski vrt, Maribor

Attendance: 0^{[31][note 1]}

Referee: François Letexier (France)

24 March 2021 (2021-03-24)

18:00

Czech Republic	1–1	Italy
Maggiore 75' (o.g.)	Report	Scamacca 31'

Stadion Z'dežele, Celje

Attendance: 0^{[32][note 1]}

Referee: Dennis Higler (Netherlands)

27 March 2021 (2021-03-27)

18:00

Slovenia	1–1	Czech Republic
Matko 32'	Report	Prelec 86' (o.g.)

Stadion Z'dežele, Celje

Attendance: 0^{[33][note 1]}

Referee: Glenn Nyberg (Sweden)

27 March 2021 (2021-03-27)

21:00

Spain	0–0	Italy
	Report

Ljudski vrt, Maribor

Attendance: 0^{[34][note 1]}

Referee: Harm Osmers (Germany)

30 March 2021 (2021-03-30)

21:00

Italy	4–0	Slovenia
Maggiore 10' Raspadori 19' Cutrone 25' (pen.), 50'	Report

Ljudski vrt, Maribor

Attendance: 0^{[35][note 1]}

Referee: Bartosz Frankowski (Poland)

30 March 2021 (2021-03-30)

21:00

Spain	2–0	Czech Republic
Gómez 69', 78'	Report

Stadion Z'dežele, Celje

Attendance: 0^{[36][note 1]}

Referee: Giorgi Kruashvili (Georgia)

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	Denmark	3	3	0	0	6	0	+6	9	Advance to knockout stage
2	France	3	2	0	1	4	1	+3	6
3	Russia	3	1	0	2	4	6	−2	3
4	Iceland	3	0	0	3	1	8	−7	0

25 March 2021 (2021-03-25)

18:00

Russia	4–1	Iceland
Chalov 31' (pen.) Tiknizyan 42' Zakharyan 45+2' Makarov 53'	Report	Guðjohnsen 59'

Ménfői úti Stadion, Győr

Attendance: 0^{[37][note 1]}

Referee: Halil Umut Meler (Turkey)

25 March 2021 (2021-03-25)

21:00

France	0–1	Denmark
	Report	Dreyer 75'

Haladás Sportkomplexum, Szombathely

Attendance: 0^{[38][note 1]}

Referee: Irfan Peljto (Bosnia and Herzegovina)

28 March 2021 (2021-03-28)

21:00

Russia	0–2	France
	Report	Édouard 15' (pen.) Ikoné 24' (pen.)

Haladás Sportkomplexum, Szombathely

Attendance: 0^{[39][note 1]}

Referee: Guillermo Cuadra Fernández (Spain)

28 March 2021 (2021-03-28)

15:00

Iceland	0–2	Denmark
	Report	Isaksen 5' Bech 18'

Ménfői úti Stadion, Győr

Attendance: 0^{[40][note 1]}

Referee: Halil Umut Meler (Turkey)

31 March 2021 (2021-03-31)

18:00

Denmark	3–0	Russia
Bruun Larsen 10' Dreyer 11' Holse 90'	Report

Haladás Sportkomplexum, Szombathely

Attendance: 0^{[41][note 1]}

Referee: Maurizio Mariani (Italy)

31 March 2021 (2021-03-31)

18:00

Iceland	0–2	France
	Report	Guendouzi 17' Édouard 38'

Ménfői úti Stadion, Győr

Attendance: 0^{[42][note 1]}

Referee: Lawrence Visser (Belgium)

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	Portugal	3	3	0	0	6	0	+6	9	Advance to knockout stage
2	Croatia	3	1	0	2	4	5	−1	3[a]
3	Switzerland	3	1	0	2	3	6	−3	3[a]
4	England	3	1	0	2	2	4	−2	3[a]

25 March 2021 (2021-03-25)

21:00

Portugal	1–0	Croatia
Vieira 68'	Report

Bonifika Stadium, Koper

Attendance: 0^{[43][note 1]}

Referee: Bartosz Frankowski (Poland)

25 March 2021 (2021-03-25)

15:00

England	0–1	Switzerland
	Report	Ndoye 78'

Bonifika Stadium, Koper

Attendance: 0^{[44][note 1]}

Referee: Giorgi Kruashvili (Georgia)

28 March 2021 (2021-03-28)

18:00

Croatia	3–2	Switzerland
Ivanušec 8' Moro 61' (pen.) Vizinger 64'	Report	Imeri 79' (pen.) Kulenović 89' (o.g.)

Bonifika Stadium, Koper

Attendance: 0^{[45][note 1]}

Referee: Dennis Higler (Netherlands)

28 March 2021 (2021-03-28)

21:00

Portugal	2–0	England
Mota 64' Trincão 74' (pen.)	Report

Stadion Stožice, Ljubljana

Attendance: 0^{[46][note 1]}

Referee: François Letexier (France)

31 March 2021 (2021-03-31)

18:00

Switzerland	0–3	Portugal
	Report	Queirós 3' Trincão 60' Conceição 65'

Stadion Stožice, Ljubljana

Attendance: 0^{[47][note 1]}

Referee: Glenn Nyberg (Sweden)

31 March 2021 (2021-03-31)

18:00

Croatia	1–2	England
Bradarić 90+1'	Report	Eze 12' (pen.) Jones 74'

Bonifika Stadium, Koper

Attendance: 0^{[48][note 1]}

Referee: Harm Osmers (Germany)

Wikimedia Commons has media related to 2021 UEFA European Under-21 Championship.

• Official website
• Under-21 Matches: 2021, UEFA.com