U-21 Championship to switch to odd years in 2007

Discussion in 'UEFA and Europe' started by SueB, Jun 28, 2005.

  1. SueB

    SueB New Member

    Mar 23, 1999
    Waterbury, VT
    http://www.uefa.com/uefa/news/Kind=128/newsId=312619.html

    This doesn't seem like a big change on the surface, but it means a lot of changes.

    Currently, the U-21 UEFA championship is held every other year in the same years as World Cups and European championships. The qualifying schedule essentially shadows that of the full national team competitions with the qualifying groups being the same (mostly), the national and U-21 teams travelling together, and the U-21s playing the day before. I wonder if they'll still have a 2-year qualifying schedule. If so, then the one for 2007 will have to begin this fall. But I wonder if, to make things simpler, they'll shorten it and switch to the single-site tournament group qualifying format currently used at the U-17 and U-19 age levels.

    Also, every four years the tournament is used as an Olympic qualifying tournament - wonder if they'll keep this in place but compete it the year before the Olympics. If so, they'd have to change the ages. Interestingly, though it's called a "U-21" tournament, that's really the age at the START of qualifying and not at the finals. For example, in the 2004/2006 edition, the players must be born in 1983 or later. I wonder what the age cut-off will be for the 2007 edition (1984 or 1985).
     

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