UEFA European U21 Championship 2011

Every 2 years, the UEFA European U21 Championship takes place, and in 2011, it is the turn of Denmark to host the tournament, which begins this Saturday. The regulations for the tournament are fairly complex, and a short summary can be found here:
http://www.uefa.com/under21/finals/competitionformat/index.html

The championships are a great chance for punters to make some money, and often throw up some surprising results.


Group A – Denmark, Switzerland, Iceland, Belarus
Hosts Denmark have a good chance of qualifying from this group and our priced at 10 (Betfair), to win the competition. On the face of it, this seems to be very low, considering they have not played a competitive under-21 match for over 2 years. However, playing as hosts and on the back of a 4-0 victory over Turkey in their final preparations for the tournament, the Danes could be expected to make a march towards the championship with a semi-final slot a safe bet. Switzerland are my tip from group A to join Denmark in the semi-finals. Also priced at 10, they are joint 4th favourites with Denmark to lift the trophy, and considering the group they are in, the semi-finals should be an achievable goal. Xherdan Shaqiri is one of my tips to shine at the tournament. The 19 year old winger, shone for the Swiss against England last weekend at senior level, leading to tabloid claims that Manchester United were tracking the progress of the FC Basel player. Iceland are priced at 11, making them 6th favourites for the tournament. They certainly have plenty of firepower up front, hitting a tournament leading 33 goals on way to the finals. Watch out for them as they could surprise Denmark and Switzerland in this group and make there way into the semi-finals, although my prediction is for a third place finish in this group. Without a doubt, Belarus pulled off the most surprising result in qualifying. Trailing 2-0 to 5-times champions Italy after the first leg of the play-offs, they beat them 3-0 back home to reach the finals. Priced at 44, they are by far expected to perform the worst at the championship, and sadly I cannot see them finishing anywhere but 4th in there group. However, just think back to Greece at Euro 2004…


Group B - England, Ukraine, Spain, Czech Republic
Group B can really only be described as a 'group of death'. All 4 teams have a good chance of winning the tournament, which makes picking 2 semi-finalists from this group even harder. England go into the tournament as 2nd favourites, and why shouldn't they be? Having come runners up to Spain in 2009, they have experience of playing in these finals. Many of the under-21 side Stuart Pearce has taken to Denmark have already had 2-3 years experience of playing top-flight football in the Barclays Premiership. With the likes of Jordan Henderson and Phil Jones securing multi-million pound moves in the last few days to teams with European aspirations, the time is now for these players to make the step up from promising youngsters, to full England Internationals. Ukraine are priced at 12.5 and are therefore 7th favourites. I expect they would be higher up the table in terms of favourites, but due to the group they find themselves in, qualification looks very tricky. As in most major football tournaments at any level these days, Spain are the favourites at 3. With a squad containing world cup winners, Jaun Mata and Javi Martinez and the likes of Barcelona's Bojan, it would be a suprising result if they failed to retain the trophy they won back in 2009. The Czech Republic are my tip to be Dark Horses in the competition. They are 3rd favourites at 7.4, but went unbeaten in qualifying, the only team to do so. If they can sneak past group favourites England and Spain, and progress into the semi's, they have a great chance of going all the way as is the way with knock-out football.


Top Goalscorer?
In my opinion there are 3 main contenders for this crown. England's Daniel Sturridge found his scoring boots in the second half of the season whilst on loan at Bolton, and with England expected to reach the later stages of the tournamanet, he has a great chance of becoming top goalscorer, and is priced at 7 to do so. Barcelona and Spain's Bojan is most people's favourite for this crown. Joint favourite, priced at 7, who would look beyond him for a safe bet. My tip for the title however is the Czech Republic's Tomáš Pekhart (photo above) who was top scorer in qualifying with 9 goals. I believe the Czech's could upset Spain or England and reach the later stages of the tournament giving Pekhart a greater chance of becoming the top goal-getter, and priced at 9.2, it is more than worth a flutter on him.