2021 UEFA European Under-21 Championship qualification


The 2021 UEFA European Under-21 Championship qualifying competition is a men's under-21 football competition that will determine the 14 teams joining the automatically qualified co-hosts Hungary and Slovenia in the 2021 UEFA European Under-21 Championship final tournament.
Apart from Hungary and Slovenia, all remaining 53 UEFA member national teams entered the qualifying competition. Players born on or after 1 January 1998 are eligible to participate.

Format

The qualifying competition consists of two rounds:
In the qualifying group stage, teams are ranked according to points, and if tied on points, the following tiebreaking criteria are applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings :
  1. Points in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
  2. Goal difference in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
  3. Goals scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
  4. Away goals scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
  5. If more than two teams are tied, and after applying all head-to-head criteria above, a subset of teams are still tied, all head-to-head criteria above are reapplied exclusively to this subset of teams;
  6. Goal difference in all group matches;
  7. Goals scored in all group matches;
  8. Away goals scored in all group matches;
  9. Wins in all group matches;
  10. Away wins in all group matches;
  11. Disciplinary points ;
  12. UEFA coefficient ranking for the qualifying group stage draw.
To determine the best runners-up from the qualifying group stage, the results against the teams in sixth place are discarded. The following criteria are applied :
  1. Points;
  2. Goal difference;
  3. Goals scored;
  4. Away goals scored;
  5. Wins;
  6. Away wins;
  7. Disciplinary points;
  8. UEFA coefficient ranking for the qualifying group stage draw.
In the play-offs, the team that scores more goals on aggregate over the two legs qualifies for the final tournament. If the aggregate score is level, the away goals rule is applied, i.e., the team that scores more goals away from home over the two legs advances. If away goals are also equal, extra time is played. The away goals rule is again applied after extra time, i.e., if there are goals scored during extra time and the aggregate score is still level, the visiting team advances by virtue of more away goals scored. If no goals are scored during extra time, the tie is decided by penalty shoot-out.

Schedule

The qualifying matches are played on dates that fall within the FIFA International Match Calendar.
StageDraw dateFIFA International Dates
Qualifying group stage11 December 201818–26 March 2019
Qualifying group stage11 December 20183–11 June 2019
Qualifying group stage11 December 20182–10 September 2019
Qualifying group stage11 December 20187–15 October 2019
Qualifying group stage11 December 201811–19 November 2019
Qualifying group stage11 December 201831 August – 8 September 2020
Qualifying group stage11 December 20185–13 October 2020
Qualifying group stage11 December 20189–17 November 2020
Qualifying group stage11 December 2018-

Qualifying group stage

Draw

The draw for the qualifying group stage was held on 11 December 2018, 09:00 CET, at the UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland.
The teams were seeded according to their coefficient ranking, calculated based on the following:
Each group contained one team from each of Pots A–F. Based on the decisions taken by the UEFA Emergency Panel, Spain and Gibraltar, and Serbia and Kosovo would not be drawn in the same group.
Team
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;Notes

Group [|1]

Group 2

Group 3

Group 4

Group 5

Group 6

Group 7

Group 8

Group 9

Ranking of second-placed teams

To determine the five best second-placed teams from the qualifying group stage which advance directly to the final tournament, only the results of the second-placed teams against the first, third, fourth and fifth-placed teams in their group are taken into account, while results against the sixth-placed team in six-team groups are not included. As a result, eight matches played by each second-placed team are counted for the purposes of determining the ranking.

Play-offs

The draw for the play-offs was supposed to be held on 16 October 2020 at the UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland, to decide the matchups and the order of legs. The matches were supposed to be played at 9–17 November 2020, with the four play-off winners qualifying for the final tournament. However, the play-offs were later cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Qualified teams

The following 16 teams qualify for the final tournament.
TeamQualified asQualified onPrevious appearances in Under-21 Euro1
only U-21 era
3 12 20184
3 12 20180
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Top goalscorers