On September 11, the Under-21 football teams of Bulgarian and England will play in Sofia, in a qualifier for the 2009 UEFA European Under-21 Championships in Sweden. The Bulgarian side has been punished by UEFA, on the grounds that their supporters threw objects at the referee in a previous game against Belgium, meaning the September 11 game will be played behind closed doors. The game will be played at the CSKA stadium in Borisovata Gradina, behind Vassil Levski national stadium.
Bulgaria is in group 3, together with Montenegro, England, Ireland, and Portugal. Only one game has been played so far between the teams in the group, on June 5. It was a game between Bulgaria and Montenegro, which Bulgaria lost 1:2. This automatically made Montenegro the group leaders and Bulgaria the group losers since none of the other teams have played. With the game against England, Bulgaria has no alternative but to win. However, this could be very difficult because of the strength of the UK Premier League. No doubt expectations are high for Andrew Surman and Joe Lewis, new faces in coach Stuart Pearce’ squad. Bulgaria, sadly, will not be able to rely on Valeri Bozhinov from Manchester City who is injured and will be away from the pitch until Christmas.
Bulgarian team list is still unclear. As for England the team list most probably will be as follows:
Goalkeepers: Ben Alnwick, Joe Hart, Joe Lewis. Defenders: Martin Cranie, Craig Gardner, Michael Mancienne, Nedum Onuoha, Andrew Taylor, Steven Taylor, David Wheater. Midfielders: Tom Huddlestone, Adam Johnson, Michael Johnson, Michael Kightly, James Milner, Fabrice Muamba, Mark Noble, Andrew Surman. Forwards: Gabriel Agbonlahor, Dexter Blackstock, Matt Derbyshire, Luke Moore, Theo Walcott.
The tournament consists of a qualifying competition and a final tournament. Qualifying kicked off on May 31 2007 and will run until October 15 2008. The final tournament takes place from June 14 till June 27 2009. There are two stages to the qualifying competition, a group stage followed by play-offs to determine the seven nations that will join Sweden, who qualify automatically as hosts, at the eight-team final tournament. Players are eligible to play in the 2009 UEFA European Under-21 Championship if they were born on or after January 1 1986.
The Netherlands won the last championships which was held in Portugal. The Dutch won the final, in Porto, against Ukraine. Italy has won the championships a record five times.
