Under-21 footballers to face Austria in European Championships playoffs

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The draw was held on Friday to determine the seven pairs of teams to play off for a place in next summer’s Under-21 European Football Championships, to be held in Sweden.
      Finland’s U-21 team were in the draw, after having progressed from their qualifying group last week.
      They were matched with Austria, with the first game to be played in Pasching, Austria on October 10th and the return leg four days later.
      The Finnish FA announced on Friday that the venue for the 2nd leg match would be determined within a week. The Finnair Stadium in Helsinki (capacity 10,770) seems the most likely venue.
     
Both Finland and Austria won their qualifying groups.
      The Finns gathered 19 points from their 8 games (six wins, one draw, and one defeat - to Scotland, eventually placed 3rd behind Denmark, who qualified as one of the four best runners-up), while the Austrians were unbeaten, with 20 points from six wins and two draws.
      In fact Austria were pretty convincing winners, with 2nd-placed Belgium picking up only 11 points, and Slovakia 10. Iceland and Cyprus made up the remainder of the group.
     
The Finnish coach Markku Kanerva  was not unhappy with Friday’s outcome. “Quite reasonable luck in the draw, but getting through will require our taking things to a higher level. The good thing is that our team has shown it is capable of rising to a challenge when the going gets tough”, he said in a statement on the Finnish FA website after attending the draw in Malmö.
      The last time Finland and Austria met at this level was in 2005, when the Finns came back from Linz with a 2-0 victory thanks to goals from Markus Halsti ja Njazi Kuqi.
      However, too many conclusions should not be drawn from this win, as it featured players born in 1983, and it will be a completely different team that steps out in Pasching.
      Even if they may have had a relatively easy group, the Austrians under coach Manfred Zsak are certainly no pushovers: a good many of the same players were in the side that reached the semi-finals of the Under-20s World Cup in Canada in 2007.
     
The other pairings are Germany-France, Denmark-Serbia, Turkey-Belarus, Wales-England, Italy-Israel, and Switzerland-Spain.
      As hosts, Sweden qualify automatically for the tournament, to be played from 15th to 29th June, 2009.
      Neither Finland nor Austria has ever previously qualified for the UEFA Under-21 European Championships, so whoever wins will be making a first appearance at the finals.
      The reigning champions The Netherlands will not be there to defend their title - they were runners-up to Switzerland in their group, but failed to qualify, finishing with a poorer goal difference than Denmark.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Finnish Under-21 footballers top group and qualify for European Championships playoffs (10.9.2008)

Links:
  UEFA
  European Under-21 Football Championships, 2007-2009 (Wikipedia)

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