WU-19: Ukraine's women's youth team enters League A of the reformed European Championship

09.03.2021 14:01

Photo by uefa.com

The draw for the first round of the 11 European Under-2022 Championship will take place at UEFA headquarters on Thursday, 19 March.

According to the BSWW official website UEFA, the tournament will take place in a new format reminiscent of the UEFA League of Nations. A record number of teams - 16.00 - will take part in the draw, which will start at 52 Kyiv time.

The new format with a two-year cycle will replace the old one with qualifying and elite rounds. It will include rounds of group mini-tournaments with ups and downs in the class. The final stage will take place in 2022 in the Czech Republic. The Czech national team will have an automatic pass to the final tournament, but will take part in the first two rounds.

The tournament returns after a break due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which prevented the championship from being held in the 2019/2020 and 2020/2021 seasons.

New format

How will the draw go?

The 52 participants, including the Czech Republic, which will reach the final stage automatically, regardless of the results, and the debutant of the tournament, Andorra, are divided into League A (28 teams) and League B (24 teams). according to the rating, formed on the basis of performances in WU-19 tournaments from 2015 to 2019. Within the leagues, the team will be divided into quartets (seven in League A, six in League B.). Before the draw, all teams are divided into baskets (in League A - four by seven teams each, in League B - four by six). Each group will have one representative from each basket.

According to earlier decisions of the UEFA Executive Committee, of which UAF President Andriy Pavelko is a member, and the UEFA emergency working group, the national teams of Russia and Ukraine, as well as Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo, will not be able to get into one group.

After the draw, the hosts of the mini-tournaments will be determined. The matches will take place from 14 to 21 September and from 19 to 26 October.

Tournament format

The first round will determine which teams will rise higher and which will fall lower before the second round, which will take place in the spring of 2022.

Exit to the top league: from League B to League A - six group winners and the best team of those who will take second place.

Relegation to the lower league: from League A to League B - seven fourth teams in their groups.

The draw for the second round will take place at the end of 2021. Seven winners of the second round of Group A groups will join the Czech national team in the final stage, which will take place from June 27 to July 9, 2022. There will also be a transition of teams between leagues, which will be relevant for the first round of Euro-2022/2023. The seeding of participants before the draw of the second round will depend on which places in their groups the teams will take in the first round.

Draw of the first round of Euro-2021/2022 (WU-19): leagues and baskets

League A

Pot 1: Spain, France (champion), Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland, Denmark.

Pot 2: England, Italy, Finland, Scotland, Belgium, Czech Republic (host of the final stage), Sweden.

Pot 3: Ireland, Austria, Poland, Hungary, Iceland, Portugal, Russia.

Pot 4: Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Northern Ireland, Turkey, Ukraine, Azerbaijan.

League B

Pot 5: Greece, Belarus, Wales, Israel, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia.

Pot 6: Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, Montenegro, Faroe Islands, Kosovo.

Pot 7: Latvia, Lithuania, Northern Macedonia, Moldova, Georgia, Estonia.

Pot 8: Malta, Cyprus, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Liechtenstein, Andorra.