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The UEFA U-21 Championship 2007 began in May 2006 and is the 16th staging of UEFA's European Under-21 Football Championship.

For the first time, a host nation has been chosen ahead of the competition — the Netherlands, who will be exempt from qualifying. The host nation was chosen on December 15, 2005. England, Italy, Portugal, Turkey and Sweden also submitted bids. Of UEFA's 52 member countries, only the Faroe Islands will not compete. That leaves 50 nations attempting to qualify for the 7 remaining spots at the finals, expected to be held in late May or June 2007.

This will be the first time that the competition's final matches will take place in an odd-numbered year. In order to make the switch, the 2007 edition will be a shortened version, condensed from a two-year campaign into a one-year campaign. Therefore, a completely new format has been devised to eliminate the weaker nations early, and sees a decrease in the size and duration of qualification groups. The competition's structure is as follows:

1. The 16 lowest ranked nations play-off (on a home-and-away basis) before the qualifying group stage, to eliminate 8 teams.
   1. This round must be completed by July 15, 2006.
2. The 42 teams left form 14 three-team groups.
   1. Each team will play one home match and one away match.
   2. This round will be completed on September 6, 2006.
3. The 14 group winners play-off (on a home-and-away basis) to decide the seven qualifying nations.

The draw for the first two stages had already been made, with teams going into the preliminary rounds already knowing who they would face if they qualified.

Qualification

For more details see UEFA U-21 Championship 2007 (Qualifying Round).

Preliminary Round

Team 1	Agg.Tooltip Aggregate score	Team 2	1st leg	2nd leg
Estonia	1-7	Wales	0-2	1-5
Malta	2-4	Georgia	1-2	1-2
San Marino	3-4	Armenia	3-0*	0-4
Liechtenstein	1-8	Northern Ireland	1-4	0-4
Kazakhstan	0-1	Moldova	0-0	0-1
Luxembourg	0-5	Republic of Macedonia	0-3	0-2
Andorra	0-2	Iceland	0-0	0-2
Azerbaijan	1-5	Republic of Ireland	1-2	0-3

Team #1 played the first leg at home.
(*) Match awarded 3-0 to San Marino due to Armenia including suspended players in their squad.

Qualifying Groups

Teams in bold qualified for the third round of qualification.

Play-offs

The winners of the two legs aggregated advance to the final tournament in the Netherlands.

Team 1	Agg.Tooltip Aggregate score	Team 2	1st leg	2nd leg
England		Germany	1 - 0	Oct 10
Serbia		Sweden	0 - 3	Oct 11
Czech Republic		Bosnia and Herzegovina	2 - 1	Oct 11
Russia		Portugal	4 - 1	Oct 11
France		Israel	Oct 7	Oct 11
Italy		Spain	0 - 0	Oct 11
Belgium		Bulgaria	Oct 7	Oct 11

Team #1 will play the first leg at home.

Finals Tournament Venues

Sources/External links

• Draw and Fixtures at uefa.com

• UEFA European Under-21 Football Championship