24 March 2007
VIDEO: England 3-3 Italy
Watch the highlights from the first game at Wembley as England Under-21s drew 3-3 with Italy in March 2007.

England v Portugal
2009 UEFA European Under-21 Championship Qualifier
7.45pm, Friday 5 September 2008
Wembley Stadium
Ticket details

On Monday, we announced that Stuart Pearce's England Under-21s will play their UEFA Championship qualifier with Portugal at Wembley Stadium on 5 September.

The Friday night fixture is England's final match of the qualifying campaign and they are in pole position to make the play-offs for the 2009 Finals in Sweden.

The Under-21s, of course, made a little bit of history on 24 March 2007 when they took on their Italian counterparts in the first official match at the new Wembley. A crowd of 55,700, obviously a record for an Under-21 international, saw an entertaining 3-3 draw. Giampaolo Pazzini became Wembley's first scorer after just 29 seconds and went on to claim a hat-trick.

The Under-21s were the "Under-23s" before the age level was amended in 1976 to allow England to enter a team in the new UEFA Under-21 Championship and those Under-23s actually played one match at the old Wembley - a little-known fact. The date was 16 October 1957 and Romania provided the opposition.

The match opened sensationally with a superbly taken goal by a young Jimmy Greaves within 50 seconds of the kick-off. The same player made it  2-0 with a diving header before an amazing turn in the game's fortunes, the Romanians quickly drawing level through Ene and Georgescu.

For a while it appeared that England might well lose their grasp on the game - but a partial revival was rewarded with a goal by Newcastle's William Curry on the hour. It finished 3-2 to England.

So why did the Under-23s, who normally played at club grounds, line up at Wembley on that occasion? In the 1957-58 season the England senior team didn't have a Wembley fixture until November - i.e. nothing in August, September or October.

An "intermediate" international was included in the calendar to allow fans another opportunity to visit the world-famous stadium.