This summer’s U17 Euro Finals in England will start to truly take shape on Thursday afternoon, when the draw takes place at St. George’s Park.
With the Young Lions hosting the competition and automatically qualifying for the Finals, we now know which other 15 teams will be joining us and playing across the Midlands and Yorkshire next month.
It’s a high calibre list of nations too, with holders Spain back to defend the title they won after a penalty shoot-out victory over England at last year’s Final in Croatia.
Other nations to have qualified include the likes of Germany, Portugal, Netherlands, Switzerland, Italy and Belgium who have all enjoyed success at this level over the years.
England’s record goalscorer and former captain Wayne Rooney will be at St. George’s Park to help conduct the draw with the teams pulled out into four groups for the first stage of the finals.
And fans can watch the draw live as it unfolds, via the @England Twitter account from 5.30pm.
How the draw works
Pot 1 (seven best Elite Round winners): Republic of Ireland, Netherlands, Serbia, Norway, Slovenia, Switzerland, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Pot 2 (remaining Elite Round winners and seven best runners-up): Sweden, Germany, Portugal, Denmark, Italy, Israel, Spain, Belgium
England are automatically placed in position one of group A and nations from pot one will be drawn to fill the remaining positions of one and two in the four groups.
The nations from pot two will then be drawn to fill positions three and four in the groups.
Group stage games at the Finals will take place on 4/5, 7/8, 10/11 May, with the top two sides from each group progressing to the quarter-finals and the remaining nations knocked out.
The quarter-finals will take place on 13 and 14 May, the semi-finals on 17 May and the Final at Rotherham United will be held on 20 May.
