2015 UEFA European Under-21 Championship

The 2015 UEFA European Under-21 Championship was the 20th edition of the UEFA European Under-21 Championship. The champions were Sweden.
Qualification.
Qualification for the final tournament of the 2015 UEFA European Under-21 Championship consisted of two rounds: a group stage and a play-off round. The group stage draw took place on 31 January 2013 in Nyon, Switzerland, and distributed 52 national teams into ten groups of five or six teams. Each group was contested in a double round-robin system, where teams played each other twice, at home and away. The ten group winners and the four best second-placed teams advanced to the play-off round, where they were paired by draw into seven two-legged ties. The play-off winners joined the Czech Republic in the final tournament.
Qualified teams.
The following teams qualified for the 2015 UEFA European Under-21 Championship final tournament:
Venues and stadiums.
The competition was played at four venues in three host cities: Eden Arena and Generali Arena (in Prague), Andrův stadion (in Olomouc), and Stadion Miroslava Valenty (in Uherské Hradiště).
Match officials.
The match officials of the tournament:
Seeding.
The draw for the final tournament took place at 18:00 CET on 6 November 2014, at the Clarion Congress Hotel in Prague. England, the highest-ranked team according to the competition coefficient rankings, and the host team, Czech Republic, were seeded and automatically assigned to separate groups. The second and third-ranked teams in the coefficient rankings, Italy and Germany, were also seeded and drawn into separate groups, while the four unseeded teams were drawn into the remaining positions of the two groups.
Squads.
Each national team had to submit a squad of 23 players, three of whom had to be goalkeepers. If a player was injured or ill severely enough to prevent his participation in the tournament before his team's first match, he could be replaced by another player.
Format of competitions.
The eight finalists were drawn into two groups of four teams. As hosts, Czech Republic were seeded in group A, while England, the best-ranked team in the UEFA coefficient ranking, were seeded in group B. In each group, teams played matches against each other in a round-robin system, and the top two teams advanced to the semi-finals.
The provisional schedule was released by UEFA on 10 November 2014, and confirmed on 2 December 2014. All times are in Central European Summer Time ().
After the conclusion of the group stage, the following four teams from UEFA qualified for the Olympic football tournament.
Tie-breaking.
If two or more teams were equal on points on completion of the group matches, the following tie-breaking criteria were applied:
If, after having applied criteria 1 to 3, teams still had an equal ranking, criteria 1 to 3 were reapplied exclusively to the matches between the teams in question to determine their final rankings. If this procedure did not lead to a decision, criteria 4 to 6 were applied.
If only two teams were tied (according to criteria 1–5) after having met in the last match of the group stage, their ranking would have been determined by a penalty shoot-out.
Group A.
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Group B.
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Knockout stage.
In the knockout stage, extra time and penalty shoot-out were used to decide the winner if necessary.
Awards.
Golden Boot.
The Golden Boot is given to the player who scored the most goals during the tournament.
Player of the tournament.
After the tournament the U21 EURO Player of the Tournament is selected by the UEFA Technical Observers.
Team of the tournament.
After the tournament the Under-21 Team of the Tournament is selected by the UEFA Technical Observers.
Broadcasting.
Countries who are not covered by a local broadcaster had the matches broadcast on YouTube.
Ambassador.
Former Czech Republic midfielder Pavel Nedvěd was the ambassador for the tournament.