The UEFA EURO 2023 Under 21 will be hosted by Romania and Georgia. The matches in Romania will be played in Bucharest and Cluj-Napoca.

The 2023 Under-21 EURO final tournament draw will be held tomorrow, 18 October, at the Romanian Athenaeum, in Bucharest. Romania qualified automatically as host country. The final tournament will take place next year, from 21 June to 8 July 2023.

Until we find out, tomorrow night, the future opponents of coach Emil Săndoi’s squad, let’s discover together 7 highlights of the U21 European Championship!

The 24th edition and Romania’s unique position

  • The next edition of the U21 European Championship will be the 24th, with the first one being organized in 1978. Prior to that, three editions in an Under 23 format had been held. The first edition with a host country took place in 1994, in France.
  • After the previous edition of 2021, in Hungary and Slovenia, and the one of 2019, in Italy and San Marino, the 2023 final tournament will be only the third in history hosted by two countries. Moreover, Romania will be the only country to host the final tournament for the second time, as we also organized the 1998 edition.

Global impact and average attendances

  • 29 TV stationsfrom 22 European countries, China, India, Japan, USA, Northern Africa, Middle East and Latin America broadcast the previous edition of the U21 European Championship in 2021.
  • While attendance figures of the previous final tournament were affected by the pandemic restrictions, the average attendance was 10,221 per match at the 2019 edition in Italy and San Marino, 11,623 in 2017, in Poland, and 10,866 in 2015, in the Czech Republic.

Tournament’s MVPs and top scorers

  • The title of “Most Valuable Player of the Tournament” has been awarded since 1978. Spain and Portugal dominated the last 6 editions of the contest.Portugal had two winners: William Carvalho (2015) and Fabio Vieira (2021), while the Spaniards had four: Juan Mata (2011), Thiago Alcantara (2013), Dani Ceballos (2017), and Fabian Ruiz (2019).
  • The Top Scorer title was introduced in 2000, and, at the last two editions, was won by Germany’s Luca Waldschmidt (2019) and Lukas Nmecha (2021). In 2019, when Romania made it to the semifinals, George Pușcaș ranked second among the top scorers.

Olympics at stake

  • The teams ending next year’s final tournament in the top three positions will qualify for the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris! Only three places are available to Europe, since France is automatically qualified as host country. If France is in the top three, the team ending the U21 EURO in the fourth place will qualify.
  • Two teams from Europe – Spain and Germany – played in the last two finals at the Olympics, but the last time a national team from our continent won the title was in 1992, when Spain was the host country and the gold medalist.

A launchpad for talents

  • The youngest players at the last final tournament were under 18 at the kick-off of the competition. Among them were Moukoko (Germany),who now plays for Dortmund and is worth 15 million Euros, according to transfermarkt.com, Faghir (Denmark), who signed with Stuttgart right after the final tournament and has a market value of 3 million Euros, and Karabec (Czech Republic), with a value of 2.5 million Euros, who has played in every single match for Sparta Prague in the current season.
  • Portuguese midfielder Fabio Vieira, the most valuable player at the 2021 edition, was transferred last summer by Arsenal from FC Porto for 35 million Euros. The top scorer of the tournament hosted by Hungary and Slovenia, the German Lukas Nmecha,was transferred immediately after the final tournament by Wolfsburg from Manchester City for 8 million Euros.

Towards senior football and the Champions League

  • Five of the players who had played for their countries in an Under-21 European Championship final tournament subsequently totaled over 130 caps for their respective senior national teams: Podolski (Germany), Xavi (Spain), Srna (Croatia), Karagounis (Greece), and Svensson (Sweden).
  • Also, 6 players subsequently exceeded 100 matches played in the Champions League: Lampard (England), Pirlo (Italy), Cech (Czech Republic), Puyol and Xavi (Spain), and Neuer (Germany).

19 winners, one debut and 13 teams that played at least one semifinal

  • Apart from Georgia, which is for the first time at a final tournament, Israel played only the group phase twice, while Croatia made it to the quarterfinals in 2021. On the other hand, 13 national teams have played at least one semifinal so far!
  • Seven of the 16 national teams that will take part in next year’s final tournament are former winners of the competition. Together, they total 19 European Champion titles! Spain and Italy, each with 5 five titles, dominate this select group of winners.

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