Slovakia will host the 2025 UEFA European Under-21 Championship from June 11th to 28th. The 2025 finals will be the third since the expansion to 16 teams, following the 2021 edition in Hungary and Slovenia, and the 2023 tournament in Georgia and Romania.
Hosts Slovakia are joined in the finals by the 12 teams that came through the qualifying group stage that ended on October 15th, and the three winners of the playoffs on November 15th and 19th.
The tournament will mark the 25th anniversary of the championship being staged in Slovakia in the year 2000. Back then, it was the first time that the tournament featured a group stage with the Czech Republic, Spain, the Netherlands and Croatia drawn together in Group A while Italy, Slovakia, England and Turkey were represented in Group B.
Flashscore have spoken to an anonymous former UEFA Media Officer, who back then held a key position between the Slovakian organisers and UEFA. He says that the year 2000 marked a milestone in the organisation of the European Under-21 Championship.
'Totally caught by surprise'
"Up until this tournament, UEFA had treated the U21s really as a youth tournament, but Slovakia became the first step towards expanding the tournament into a full national team level event, a sort of mini-EURO really," the former UEFA Media Officer said.
The tournament was staged just a month before EURO 2000 took place in Belgium and the Netherlands and served as the perfect appetiser for the seniors to later take the stage. This is possibly the reason why interest around the tournament rose to unforeseen levels, catching UEFA and the local organisers totally by surprise.
He continued: "It became clear that the interest towards the U21s had suddenly risen substantially. From the media, from the public, even from sponsors and especially from scouts.
"The Slovakian FA and UEFA worked well together, but they were stretched to their limits throughout the tournament, given the unexpected attention.
"Huge crowds attended the open training sessions of some teams (England, Italy, Spain, Slovakia) and the respective federations had not expected all major newspapers showing so much interest.“
The unexpected attention also revealed itself through the fact that eight of the matches in the tournament attracted close to 10,000 spectators, which put the local organising committee under severe pressure.
Scouts flocking to see up-and-coming stars
"The Slovakians did a good job, and reacted quickly, expanding media areas, ramping up security at the stadiums, but it's clear that by the next European Under-21 tournament, which was staged in Switzerland in 2002, a lot of lessons had been learned“, says the former UEFA Media Officer.
Judging from the number of up-and-coming future stars taking part in the tournament that later turned into sheer football legends, it's certainly not hard to imagine the background for the growing spectator interest.
Looking at some of the names taking part in the tournament takes the breath away from any football fan. On the Spanish side, Carles Puyol was taking his final steps towards becoming a pillar in Inaki Saez's rearguard while Xavi Hernandez was developing into the exuberant playmaker that he eventually became.
A virtual army of scouts arrived to see England's matches, where a young Ledley King, along with Jamie Carragher, took part in organising the back-four for the Three Lions, while a talented Frank Lampard showed huge promise in midfield.
Mark van Bommel scored one of the best goals of the tournament when, from inside his own half, he lobbed the ball over Croatia’s Stipe Pletikosa to give the Netherlands a 2-1 win in the group phase. In the Dutch team, you would also find a young midfielder from Utrecht by the name of Dirk Kuyt, who later turned into a bit of a legend at Anfield.
Andrea Pirlo steals the show
Little did Kuyt know at that time that he eventually would become teammates at Liverpool with a rising star from the Czech team, Milan Baros, who had already revealed his potential in numerous other youth tournaments before arriving in Bratislava.
The star of the show at the European Under-21 Championship in 2000 in Slovakia was, however, undoubtedly, Italian playmaker Andrea Pirlo.
Pirlo announced himself as one to watch for the future with a pair of goals as Italy claimed their fourth UEFA European Under-21 Championship title in five years with a 2-1 victory against the Czech Republic in Bratislava.
It was certainly a tournament to remember for the 21-year-old 'fantasista', who scored a penalty in the Azzurrini's 2-0 opening victory against England before being sent off in a 1-1 draw with hosts Slovakia two days later.
A strong Italy side, including the likes of Gennaro Gattuso, Christian Abbiati, Cristiano Zanetti, Francesco Coco and Roberto Baronio, would eventually make their way to the final, where they faced the Czech Republic.
In an entertaining and evenly balanced match, Pirlo opened the scoring from the penalty spot after 42 minutes. Tomas Dosek then sent the 12,000-person crowd, most of whom had come across the border from Czechia to see the game, into a frenzy when he equalised shortly after half-time.
But they would be silenced soon after as Pirlo netted the winner with nine minutes to play with a brilliant curling free-kick from 25 metres, an expertise that would later turn into his trademark.