Spain are aiming to be the first nation to win the European U19 Championship for the third straight year.

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 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 look at last year’s winners of the competition, Spain.

They are looking to land the title for the third year in succession and they will become the first nation to achieve that should they be successful in the Czech Republic this year.

Spain were certainly in impressive form in qualifying for the finals, as they finished with a perfect record after an Elite round group win over their hosts Armenia.

After winning all three of their qualifying matches last Autumn, Spain added victories against Ukraine (3-1) and Turkey (3-0) in their first two games in the Elite round.

With Armenia having lost both of their first two games and knowing they would finish bottom of the group, it came as something of a surprise when they raced into a two goal lead through Voskanyan and Norayr Gyozalyan.

Spain managed to reduce the arrears in first half injury time though when Iván Bolado netted to give them hope for the second half.

Sure enough, just a couple of minutes after the re-start and Spain had forced an equaliser, coming through an own goal from Artak Antonyan.

With the game finely poised at 2-2 going into the final stages, Spain sealed a great comeback when Arsenal’s Fran Mérida struck twice to make it 4-2 and confirm Spain’s presence at the 2008 finals.

Spain begin the finals when they face Germany in Group A in Plazen on Monday 14 July.