2019 UEFA European Under-21 Championship qualification explained

Tourney Name:	UEFA European Under-21 Championship qualification
Year:	2019
Num Teams:	54
Confederations:	1
Matches:	274
Goals:	833
Prevseason:	2017
Nextseason:	2021

The 2019 UEFA European Under-21 Championship qualifying competition was a men's under-21 football competition that determined the 11 teams joining the automatically qualified hosts Italy in the 2019 UEFA European Under-21 Championship final tournament (the other co-hosts San Marino would not qualify automatically).^[1]

Apart from Italy, all remaining 54 UEFA member national teams entered the qualifying competition,^[2] with Gibraltar and Kosovo making their debuts. Players born on or after 1 January 1996 are eligible to participate.

Format

The qualifying competition consists of two rounds:^[3]

Qualifying group stage: The 54 teams are drawn into nine groups of six teams. Each group is played in home-and-away round-robin format. The nine group winners qualify directly for the final tournament, while the four best runners-up (not counting results against the sixth-placed team) advance to the play-offs.
Play-offs: The four teams are drawn into two ties to play home-and-away two-legged matches to determine the last two qualified teams.

Tiebreakers

In the qualifying 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 Article 14.01):^[3]

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;
Away 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;
Away goals scored in all group matches;
Disciplinary points (red card = 3 points, yellow card = 1 point, expulsion for two yellow cards in one match = 3 points);
UEFA coefficient for the qualifying group stage draw.

To determine the four best runners-up from the qualifying group stage, the results against the teams in sixth place are discarded. The following criteria are applied (Regulations Article 14.02):^[3]

Points;
Goal difference;
Goals scored;
Away goals scored;
Disciplinary points;
UEFA coefficient for the qualifying group stage draw.

In the play-offs, the team that scores more goals on aggregate over the two legs qualifies for the final tournament. If the aggregate score is level, the away goals rule is applied, i.e., the team that scores more goals away from home over the two legs advances. If away goals are also equal, extra time is played. The away goals rule is again applied after extra time, i.e., if there are goals scored during extra time and the aggregate score is still level, the visiting team advances by virtue of more away goals scored. If no goals are scored during extra time, the tie is decided by penalty shoot-out (Regulations Article 19.01).^[3]

Schedule

The qualifying matches are played on dates that fall within the FIFA International Match Calendar.^[2]

Stage	FIFA International Dates
Qualifying group stage	20–28 March 2017
	5–13 June 2017
	28 August – 5 September 2017
	2–10 October 2017
	6–14 November 2017
	19–27 March 2018
	3–11 September 2018
	8–16 October 2018
Play-offs	12–20 November 2018

Qualifying group stage

Draw

The draw for the qualifying group stage was held on 26 January 2017, 09:00 CET (UTC+1), at the UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland.^[4] ^[5]

The teams were seeded according to their coefficient ranking, calculated based on the following:^[6]

2013 UEFA European Under-21 Championship final tournament and qualifying competition (20%)
2015 UEFA European Under-21 Championship final tournament and qualifying competition (40%)
2017 UEFA European Under-21 Championship qualifying competition (40%)

Each group contained one team from each of Pots A–F. For political reasons, Spain and Gibraltar, Serbia and Kosovo, and Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo would not be drawn in the same group.^[2]

Final tournament hosts
width=200	Team !
	35,546	6

Teams entering qualifying group stage

Pot A
width=200	Team !
	39,037	1
	38,378	2
	36,621	3
	36,536	4
	35,590	5
	34,262	7
	34,259	8
	33,690	9
	31,060	10

Pot B
width=200	Team !
	31,057	11
	30,786	12
	29,817	13
	29,406	14
	28,239	15
	28,237	16
	28,102	17
	27,882	18
	27,372	19

Pot C
width=200	Team !
	27,372	20
	26,830	21
	26,414	22
	25,927	23
	25,859	24
	25,679	25
	25,522	26
	24,791	27
	24,581	28

Pot D
width=200	Team !
	23,683	29
	23,309	30
	23,283	31
	22,402	32
	22,349	33
	22,004	34
	21,784	35
	20,696	36
	18,584	37

Pot E
width=200	Team !
	18,411	38
	18,331	39
	18,126	40
	18,056	41
	17,741	42
	16,826	43
	16,636	44
	16,516	45
	14,498	46

Pot F
width=200	Team !
	14,331	47
	12,878	48
	12,611	49
	12,113	50
	10,740	51
	10,045	52
	8,058	53
	0	54
	0	55

Notes

Teams marked in bold qualified for the final tournament.

Groups

Ranking of second-placed teams

To determine the four best second-placed teams from the qualifying group stage which advance to the play-offs, only the results of the second-placed teams against the first, third, fourth and fifth-placed teams in their group are taken into account, while results against the sixth-placed team are not included. As a result, eight matches played by each second-placed team will count for the purposes of determining the ranking.

Play-offs

See main article: 2019 UEFA European Under-21 Championship qualification play-offs.

Matches

Qualified teams

The following 12 teams qualify for the final tournament.

Team	Qualified as	Qualified on	data-sort-type="number"	Previous appearances in Under-21 Euro¹ only U-21 era (since 1978)
			19 (1978, 1980, 1982, 1984, 1986, 1988, 1990, 1992, 1994, 1996, 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2013, 2015, 2017)
			2 (2000, 2004)
			13 (1982, 1984, 1986, 1988, 1990, 1994, 1996, 1998, 2000, 2009, 2011, 2013, 2017)
			7 (1978, 1986, 1992, 2006, 2011, 2015, 2017)
			14 (1978, 1980, 1982, 1984, 1986, 1988, 2000, 2002, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2013, 2015, 2017)
			11 (1982², 1990², 1992, 1996, 1998, 2004, 2006, 2009, 2013, 2015, 2017)
			2 (2002, 2007)
			10 (1978³, 1980³, 1984³, 1990³, 2004⁴, 2006⁴, 2007, 2009, 2015, 2017)
			1 (1998)
			8 (1982, 1984, 1986, 1988, 1994, 1996, 2002, 2006)
			0 (debut)
			6 (1982, 1984, 1986, 1992, 1994, 2017)

¹ Bold indicates champions for that year. Italic indicates hosts for that year.

² As West Germany

³ As Yugoslavia

⁴ As Serbia and Montenegro

Top goalscorers

11 goals

Dawid Kownacki

8 goals

7 goals

For full lists of goalscorers, see sections in each group:

Group 1
Group 2
Group 3
Group 4
Group 5
Group 6
Group 7
Group 8
Group 9
Play-offs

Notes and References

Web site: Italy to host 2019 Under-21 EURO. uefa.com. 9 December 2016.
Web site: Seedings set for live 2019 U21 qualifying draw. UEFA.com. 25 January 2017.
Web site: 2017-19 UEFA European Under-21 Championship regulations. UEFA.
Web site: 2019 Under-21 qualifying group stage draw. UEFA.com.
Web site: England face Netherlands, Scotland in 2019 U21 qualifying. UEFA.com. 26 January 2017.
Web site: Under-21 coefficients: 2019 qualifying draw. UEFA.com.

2019 UEFA European Under-21 Championship qualification explained

Format

Tiebreakers

Schedule

Qualifying group stage

Draw

Groups

Group 1

Group 2

Group 3

Group 4

Group 5

Group 6

Group 7

Group 8

Group 9