2027 UEFA European Under-21 Championship

the 2027 Championship was awarded to Serbia and Albania yesterday
Draw for the qualifiers was made earlier, with Ireland in the second seeds

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Pot 1: Spain, England, Portugal, Netherlands, Germany, France, Ukraine, Italy, Denmark
Pot 2: Romania, Switzerland, Croatia, Czechia, Poland, Norway, Belgium, Georgia, Republic of Ireland
Pot 3: Slovenia, Finland, Sweden, Austria, Slovakia, Greece, Iceland, Hungary, Bulgaria
Pot 4: Scotland, Wales, Israel, North Macedonia, Türkiye, Kosovo, Northern Ireland, Faroe Islands, Moldova
Pot 5: Belarus, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Luxembourg
Pot 6: Estonia, Malta, Armenia, Andorra, Gibraltar, San Marino

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Fixtures to be announced later today, with the first round at the end of March
With England in the group, we're looking at the play offs to qualify for the tournament

Are there not still automatic places for the best second placed teams? Outside of England that seems a decent group, the kind we could have done with in previous campaigns when we had stronger squads and might have got a best second place auto Q.

Between us looking at a potentially weaker squad this time around (and Ferguson and Vata at a minimum unlikely to be involved) and Jim Crawford being Jim Crawford, I have limited expectations for this campaign.

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Originally Posted by Eirambler

Are there not still automatic places for the best second placed teams? Outside of England that seems a decent group, the kind we could have done with in previous campaigns when we had stronger squads and might have got a best second place auto Q.

Between us looking at a potentially weaker squad this time around (and Ferguson and Vata at a minimum unlikely to be involved) and Jim Crawford being Jim Crawford, I have limited expectations for this campaign.

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Sorry, there are. from uefa.com

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The nine group winners and the runner-up with the best record (not counting results against sixth-placed teams) qualify directly for the final tournament to join co-hosts Albania and Serbia. The eight other runners-up contest play-offs to determine the four remaining finalists.

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Looking at the other groups in the draw - https://www.uefa.com/under21/news/02...up-stage-draw/ - I'd say the best runner up will probably come from Group C - France, Switzerland, Iceland, Faroe Islands, Luxembourg, Estonia - or maybe Group I - Denmark, Belgium, Austria, Wales, Belarus

It's as good a group as we could have hoped for apart from England.

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Originally Posted by tetsujin1979

Looking at the other groups in the draw - https://www.uefa.com/under21/news/02...up-stage-draw/ - I'd say the best runner up will probably come from Group C - France, Switzerland, Iceland, Faroe Islands, Luxembourg, Estonia - or maybe Group I - Denmark, Belgium, Austria, Wales, Belarus

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I would expect Group A or our group to have best runner-up.

not group A, you can see Finland, Kosovo, and Romania taking points off each other. Spain will blow the rest of the group away
you want a second seed who might cause the top seed problems, and will win all their other games
we might drop points against Slovakia.