Germany saw off opposition from Slovakia, Crotia and Albania to secure their spot at the finals.
UEFA European U19 Championships
Prague & Liberec, Czech Republic
14-26 July 2008
Click here for the full tournament details
Next month sees England U19s head to the Czech Republic for the 2008 UEFA European U19 Championships.
After qualifying through the Elite Round games in Belarus, England will face the hosts, Italy and Greece in Group B whilst current champions Spain, Germany, Hungary and Bulgaria contest Group A.
Over the next few days, we will look at the other teams in the competition and how they qualified and today we feature one of the Group A favourites, Germany.
They sealed their place in the finals with a relatively comfortable passage through their Elite round group games, which took place in Slovakia.
Victory against Albania (2-0) and a 2-2 draw with Croatia meant the Germans knew a win in their final game with Slovakia would be enough for them, so they were appropriately fired up for the game.
Things didn’t go immediately to plan though and the Slovakians took an early lead after only four minutes through Filip Serecin.
However, Deniz Naki got Germany swiftly back on level terms with a header before he was felled in the area for a penalty to be awarded in the 15th minute. Timo Gebhart duly stepped up to put Germany in front from the spot.
Manuel Fischer (left), joint top goalscorer in the 2006 UEFA U17 finals added another to make it 3-1 at half time.
There were a few nerves ten minutes after the re-start when Milos Supak pulled a goal back to make it 3-2 but when Germany won another penalty with 20 minutes remaining, Marcel Risse made no mistake to restore their two goal lead.
Sven Bender then put the result beyond doubt and confirmed Germany’s appearance in the Czech Republic with a 5-2 scoreline.
Germany coach Horst Hrubesch said after the game: “I am very satisfied, both with the result and with our qualification.
“But I wouldn’t have chosen for it to be so exciting!”
Germany’s first game in the finals comes against last year’s winners Spain on Monday 14 July and that match will be televised live in Eurosport.