Internationals / Tobias Gourlay / 10 June 2009 / Leave a comment

Tobias Gourlay wants to fill you in on the European Under-21 Championships, which begin in Sweden next week

On Monday, England and Finland will kick-off the 2009 European Under-21 Championships in Halmstad. Eight teams, including hosts Sweden, will compete for a title already vacated by the Netherlands, who failed to qualify.

The seven teams that have made it through are Italy, Belarus and Serbia, who now join Sweden in Group A, and England, Finland, Spain and Germany, who make up Group B. The top two teams from each group go through to the semi-finals. The tournament culminates in a final to be played in Malmö on 29 June.

After winning the tournament for the first time in 2006, the Netherlands retained the title in 2007 and became the first of the eight tournament hosts so far to lift the trophy on home soil. Italy are the most successful nation in the history of the championships, having won five of the seven tournaments between 1992 and 2004. Juan Carlos Valerón's Spain ended a run of three straight Italian victories in 1998, while Petr Čech's Czech Republic were successful in 2002.

England have twice been Under-21 champions of Europe - in 1982 and 1984 - but the Three Lions's 13-12 defeat on penalties to the Dutch in the semi-finals two years ago was their best performance since the tournament moved to its current eight-team format in 2000.

UEFA promotes the tournament as an opportunity for football fans to see the stars of the future doing it for the first time, and, indeed, Fabio Cannavaro, Andrea Pirlo and Luís Figo have all been named Golden Players of different tournaments.

Anyone who was 21 or younger at the commencement of qualifiers in May 2007 is eligible to play in the finals tournament. That is why 23-year-old James Milner, for example, is in the England squad. At that age, however, the very best players are playing senior international football. Wayne Rooney was eligible for selection for this tournament, but would reasonably have felt aggrieved at such a call-up; likewise Cesc Fàbregas, if Spain had tried something similar.

That said, the 2007 tournament helped Giuseppe Rossi secure a move to Villarreal a few weeks after it finished, allowed Ryan Babel, the man of the match in the final, to show off to Liverpool, and Marouane Fellaini used it to become the most expensive Belgian player ever.

This time around it will be interesting to see how Italy's Mario Balotelli and Spain's Bojan Krkić respond to difficult club campaigns. This time last year Bojan was asking to be excused from Luis Aragonés's Euro 2008 squad. After contributing almost nothing to Barcelona's historic season, daring to announce his unavailability for this year's Confederations Cup would have been something like Andrew Cole announcing his retirement from international football. Balotelli, a striker for Inter, must show that he is capable of interacting normally with other human beings, and perhaps score a few goals, otherwise the nightmare of a possible move to West Ham United might recur.

A player with a more obviously positive season behind him is Javi Martínez, a tall, technically excellent midfielder who will hopefully be given an opportunity to perform for Spain as he has recently done for Athletic Bilbao.

Sebastian Giovinco, the Juventus attacking midfielder, has an admirer in Arsène Wenger, and he might have a few more by tournament's end. The Atomic Ant was named the best player at Toulon last year, looked good at the Olympics, but is not yet a regular at club level. Manchester United fans, meanwhile, have an opportunity to find out how close Serbia's Zoran Tošić is to replacing Ryan Giggs.

With players like those mentioned above, it is no surprise that Spain and Italy are the tournament favourites (both are available at [4.1]), ahead of England ([4.9]), whose prospects have been dealt with elsewhere on this website, and Germany ([7.4]).

The Germans, surprisingly, have no pedigree at this level and no outstanding players at this tournament. Serbia are a more tempting prospect at [9.2]. Reports coming out of their training camp suggest that, after reaching the final two years ago, there's a strong sense of unfinished business among the Serbian players. They are, moreover, in the weaker of the two groups. If they make the semi-finals, at least one of England, Spain and Germany will be out of the tournament, and there will be an opportunity to lay the White Eagles for a tidy profit.