The Elite qualifying round for the European U19 championships has today been drawn by UEFA with Netherlands facing a tricky draw.

  • By Michael Bell
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nouriu19The tournament takes place in Greece next summer, but to book their place Netherlands will need to come through a tough looking group containing Switzerland, Serbia and Norway.

One of the four nations will be picked to host the group, with the top team and seven of the best runners up progressing to the final tournament to be played next July.

Netherlands failed to qualify for this years competition, won by Germany, but they eased through the first qualifying round, beating Andorra, Moldova and Poland.

The Dutch squad consists of a number of the players that finished as runners-up at this summers U17 European Championships, with Ajax trio Richairo Zivkovic, Donny van de Beek and Abdelhak Nouri, along with Feyenoord midfielder Jari Schuurman some of the star’s of the future that will look to fire Netherlands through the group.

Netherlands have never won the European U19 championships, finishing runners-up three times, but the last time they achieved this was back in 1970.




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