The 2009 UEFA European Under-21 Championship began on 15 June 2009, and was the 17th

UEFA European Under-21 Championship The UEFA European Under-21 Championship, the UEFA Under-21 Championship or simply the Euro Under-21, is a biennial football competition contested by the European men's under-21 national teams of the UEFA member associations. Since 1992, the comp ...

. This was the first tournament after the competition reverted to a two-year format, following the single-year 2006–07 competition, which allowed the change to odd-numbered years. Sweden hosted the final tournament in June 2009; therefore, their under-21 team qualified automatically. Players born on or after 1 January 1986 were eligible to play in this competition.

Qualification

The qualifying draw split the nations onto 10 groups of 5 or 6 teams. The seeding pots are formed on the basis of former performance in the tournament. Ten group winners along with four best-ranked runners-up advanced to the play-offs. Seven winners of the play-off pairs qualified for the final tournament.

Qualified teams

* as host nation * * * * * * * The finals' tournament draw took place on 3 December 2008 at the Svenska Mässan exhibition centre, Gothenburg. Prior to the final draw, Sweden had been seeded first in Group A as hosts of the tournament, while Spain were seeded first in Group B.

Final draw

Pot A * assigned to A1 * assigned to B1 Pot B * * Pot C * * * * The first pot contained the top seeds, these would have been host nation Sweden and the reigning champions, The Netherlands. However, The Netherlands did not qualify meaning that the team with the best qualifying record, Spain, took their place. Sweden and Spain were then automatically assigned to A1 and B1 respectively. The second pot contained the teams with the next two best records in qualifying: these were England and Italy. England were drawn into position B3 and Italy into A3. The final pot contained the other four qualified teams: Serbia, Finland, Germany and Belarus. Belarus were drawn first into position A2, Germany went into B2, Serbia into A4 and Finland into B4.

Venues

The following venues were chosen to hold the final tournament matches:

Sponsorship issues

Following the refusal of the Swedish hamburger chain Max to close their restaurant at

Borås Arena The Borås Arena is a football stadium in Borås, Sweden. It is the home ground of IF Elfsborg and Norrby IF and was opened in 2005. Borås Arena has an artificial turf pitch, GreenFields MX by GreenFields, and has a capacity of 16,200. Both clubs ...

during the tournament (as they are not an official UEFA sponsor), UEFA disqualified Borås Arena from hosting games during the tournament. There is a contract between UEFA and the city and between UEFA and its sponsors saying that the UEFA sponsors shall have

monopoly A monopoly (from Greek el, μόνος, mónos, single, alone, label=none and el, πωλεῖν, pōleîn, to sell, label=none), as described by Irving Fisher, is a market with the "absence of competition", creating a situation where a speci ...

around the arena. A city cannot force Max to close down even if it happened to sign a contract with someone saying so, as Max have a tenancy agreement with the city. On 2 September 2008, the

Swedish Football Association The Swedish Football Association ( sv, Svenska Fotbollförbundet, SvFF) is the governing and body of football in Sweden. It organises the football leagues – Allsvenskan for men and Damallsvenskan for women – and the men's and women's nat ...

nominated

Örjans Vall Örjans Vall is a football stadium in Halmstad, Sweden, built in 1922. History The stadium was originally named ''Halmstads Idrottsplats'' (eng: Halmstad's Sports Ground), and was inaugurated by the Crown Prince of Sweden Gustaf Adolf, later ...

in Halmstad as a replacement venue for Borås Arena, and they officially became the fourth host city a few days later. They were awarded the three group stage games that were to be hosted by Borås Arena, while the second semi-final was moved from Borås to Helsingborg and Olympia. Swedbank Stadion was referred to as ''Malmö New Stadium'' during the tournament, as Swedbank – which owned the naming rights to the stadium at the time – were not official UEFA sponsors.

Squads

Matches

''All times are

Central European Summer Time Central European Summer Time (CEST), sometimes referred to as Central European Daylight Time (CEDT), is the standard clock time observed during the period of summer daylight-saving in those European countries which observe Central European Time ...

(

UTC+2 UTC+02:00 is an identifier for a time offset from UTC of +02:00. In ISO 8601, the associated time would be written as 2020-11-08T23:41:45+02:00. This time is used in: As standard time (year-round) ''Principal cities: Cairo, Pretoria, Cape ...

).''

Group stage

Group A

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Group B

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Knockout stage

Semi-finals

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Final

Goalscorers

;7 goals *

Marcus Berg Bengt Erik Markus Berg (; born 17 August 1986) is a Swedish professional footballer who plays as a striker for Allsvenskan club IFK Göteborg, which he captains. Beginning his footballing career in Sweden with IFK Göteborg in the early 2000s, ...

;3 goals * Robert Acquafresca * Ola Toivonen ;2 goals * Syarhey Kislyak * Gonzalo Castro * Sandro Wagner ;1 goal * Fraizer Campbell * Lee Cattermole * Martin Cranie *

James Milner James Philip Milner (born 4 January 1986) is an English professional footballer who plays as a midfielder for club Liverpool. A versatile player, Milner has played in multiple positions, including on the wing, in midfield and at full-back. ...

* Nedum Onuoha *

Micah Richards Micah Lincoln Richards (born 24 June 1988) is an English former professional footballer, sports pundit for Sky Sports and BBC Sport, and as an ambassador of Manchester City. As a player, he was a right back who played in the Premier League and ...

* Jack Rodwell ;1 goal, cont. *

Tim Sparv Tim Sparv (born 20 February 1987) is a Finnish former professional footballer who played as a defensive midfielder. Sparv was born in Oravais, and started his football career in Norrvalla FF youth team before moving to Southampton's junior org ...

* Andreas Beck * Ashkan Dejagah *

Benedikt Höwedes Benedikt Höwedes (born 29 February 1988) is a German former professional footballer who played as a defender. He spent the majority of his playing career for Schalke 04, which he captained for six seasons, and represented the Germany national ...

* Mesut Özil *

Mario Balotelli Mario Balotelli Barwuah (; ''né'' Barwuah; born 12 August 1990) is an Italian professional footballer who plays as a striker for Swiss Super League club Sion. Balotelli started his professional football career in 2005 at Lumezzane, before ...

* Gojko Kačar * Pedro León * Marc Torrejón *

Gustav Svensson Karl Gustav Johan Svensson (born 7 February 1987) is a Swedish professional footballer who plays for Allsvenskan club IFK Göteborg as a midfielder. Starting off his footballing career in Sweden with IFK Göteborg in 2005, he went on to play p ...

;Own goals *

Alyaksandr Martynovich Alyaksandr Uladzimiravich Martynovich ( be, Аляксандр Уладзiмiравiч Мартыновіч, russian: Александр Владимирович Мартынович; born 26 August 1987) is a Belarusian professional footballer ...

(for Sweden) * Mattias Bjärsmyr (for England)

Match ball

The match ball for the competition is called the

Adidas Terrapass Europass is a football made by Adidas. It was the official match ball for UEFA Euro 2008. The ball was officially presented on 2 December 2007 during the group draw for the final tournament. For the final, a silver version, the "Europass Gloria", ...

, which was unveiled at the tournament draw in Gothenburg on 3 December. The ball is bright blue and yellow, the colours of the Swedish flag. It features 12 watermarks including one containing a map of Europe and one of the tournament logo. It is composed of 14 thermally bonded panels, which are claimed to improve the ball's accuracy and swerve.

References

External links

Official site

uefa.com – Regulations of the UEFA European Under-21 Championship 2007/09
{{UEFA European Under-21 Championship

International association football competitions hosted by Sweden 2009

UEFA Union of European Football Associations (UEFA ; french: Union des associations européennes de football; german: Union der europäischen Fußballverbände) is one of six continental bodies of governance in association football. It governs f ...

June 2009 sports events in Europe 2009 in youth association football 2000s in Malmö 2000s in Gothenburg International sports competitions in Malmö Sports competitions in Helsingborg Sports competitions in Halmstad International sports competitions in Gothenburg 21st century in Skåne County