It's 21 or under on a certain date. They changed it a few years ago because one side qualified easily and then lost most of the team to the age rule before the Finals came round and got embarassed
Shame we dont have the same philosiphy as germany. I hate seeing players like Lampard, Cole, Terry , Rio still in the england team at 30+ years of age when theyve had there chance and failed at so many tournaments, especially in the friendlys crikey blood the under 21's give them that experiance to bring them on. Really does baffle me the mentality. Sturridge is a great prospect, going to be a top striker as he proved at Bolton. Shame big clubs like Chelsea would prefer to bring in expensive foreigners, your telling me Kalou is better than Sturridge lol!!! First game against he Spanish 7pm Sunday night i think. Theres been a bit of a uproar about the way theyve done the seeding i think 4 of the top 5 favourites are in the same group or something lol!! could be wrong.
On the face of it it does look a bit lopsided, but the only seeding should have been for Group Winners (who should be given an advantage) and the usual place given to the hosts*. In which case the groups look fair with 2 seeds in each, England and Spain should have done more and won their groups if they want to complain Group A Belarus (Group Runners Up) Denmark (hosts) Iceland (Group Runners Up, Czech's Group) Switzerland (Group Winners) Group B Czech Republic (Group Winners) England (Group Runners Up) Spain (Group Runners Up) Ukraine (Group Winners) *I don't agree with the hosts being automatic seeds for tournaments. I've no problem with them being guaranteed qualification, being guaranteed to be in a certain group, or that they get to play all their games in their normal stadium, but do the seeding based on the usual criteria completely. If it's a top nation it'll make no difference, if it's a lesser nation surely hosting the World Cup (or whichever tournament it is) is about seeing your side against the best in the world at home. So why risk getting them knocked out against 3 minnows. PS: The player eligibility is any player born on or after 1st January 1988. For the next one it'll be 1st January 1990, and the qualifying has begun, so it must be anyone who's 20 or younger at the start of the year when qualifying begins.
My dad once suggested we use this U21 team as our next england team in the euro's, world cup etc. we may not win anything, but in a few years time we'll be amazing as they've been able to play together for so long.
Remember watching Sweden-England U21 in Gothenburg 2009 We were 3-0 after 45 minutes if I remember correctly Never felt worse.... We turned it around to 3-3 and the whole place was going mental Hit the crossbar during the overtime and dominated the game Milner missed the first penalty and it looked like we were gonna win it. But I was there after all....so we lost You lucky bastards.....
A good outside bet might be for iceland, Scored a bucketload in the qualifiers and beat some good teams. Oh and Phil Jones Endland under 21 CB has just signed for Man Utd 16m so that'l be the pairing of Smalling and Jones at United now, interesting if your a red.
Maybe Corry Evans can get his big bro to come and play for us if that's the case, bet he's on less wages than Mcshane?!
