Archive June 13, 2025

Players aged up to 23 years old can feature at the European Under-21 Championship, under way in Slovakia.

That is because its player registration rules are designed to ensure players can feature through an entire tournament cycle – from the start of the qualifiers through to the finals.

It means that, for the 2025 tournament, players can feature if they were born on or after 1 January 2002 – meaning they were 21 or younger at the start of the year in which qualification began.

The tournament, which started on Wednesday, consists of 16 nations, each with 23-strong squads – a total of 368 players.

Of those, 205 were aged either 22 or 23 on the opening day of the tournament – 55.7% of the total number of players. A total of 73 players were aged 23 on the tournament’s opening day – 19.8%.

Defending champions England, managed by Lee Carsley, are the only nation without a 23-year-old currently at the tournament. Middlesbrough midfielder Hayden Hackney does turn 23 two days before the final on 28 June.

England’s players in the squad who are aged above 21 include captain James McAtee of Manchester City, Liverpool’s Harvey Elliott and Newcastle defender Tino Livramento, who is the only member of Carsley’s squad to have been capped at senior level.

All 16 nations have a minimum of nine players who are 22 or 23 years of age. Georgia’s squad has 19 players who were aged 22 or 23 on the tournament’s opening day.

The oldest player at the tournament is Stoke City’s Million Manhoef, who is in the Netherlands squad. He was born on 3 January 2002.

The rule regarding the cut-off date – meaning players can be no older than 23 years and six months – is a long-standing one.

But when it was first staged as an Under-21 tournament in 1978 – having previously been an Under-23s competition – each country was allowed two players over 21.

Of England’s 26-man senior squad named by Thomas Tuchel’s for this month’s matches against Andorra and Senegal, seven would have been eligible to play in the Under-21 tournament.

That includes Real Madrid midfielder Jude Bellingham, who has 43 senior caps but does not turn 22 until a day after the Euro Under-21 final.

Burnley goalkeeper James Trafford and Chelsea trio Cole Palmer, Levi Colwill and Noni Madueke were all part of England’s 2023 Euro Under-21-winning squad and would have been eligible for selection this time around.

Arsenal teenager Myles Lewis-Skelly, 18, was the youngest member of the senior Three Lions squad against Andorra and Senegal. Had he been named in the Under-21 squad, he would have been England’s second-youngest player, after Gunners colleague Ethan Nwaneri.

In some cases, players have missed the Euro Under-21s as they are away with their clubs for the 2025 Club World Cup in the United States, starting on Saturday (local time).

New Chelsea striker Liam Delap was in line to feature at the Euros, but having completed his moved from Ipswich Town the night before Carsley named his 23-man squad, he was left out and is instead at the Club World Cup.

Midfielder Jobe Bellingham was named in the initial squad, but was replaced less than 24 hours prior to England’s opening victory over the Czech Republic on Thursday after completing a move to Borussia Dortmund. Bellingham was replaced by West Bromwich Albion’s Tom Fellows.

Manchester City have a number of players eligible for the Euros who are instead going to the Club World Cup, including new signings Rayan Cherki and the 20-year-old duo of Rico Lewis and Nico O’Reilly.

City’s Spanish midfielder Nico Gonzalez would have been the joint-oldest player at the Euros, had he gone there instead of the Club World Cup.

Spain striker Samu Aghehowa, who plays his club football for Porto, was his country’s top scorer in Euro Under-21 qualifying – but he has also gone to the Club World Cup.

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Life as St Mirren manager is an oasis of peace and serenity for Stephen Robinson.

Three consecutive top-six finishes in the Scottish Premiership, European football, memorable goals and wins domestically and continentally and a regularly sold-out stadium, this is a club that’s no longer looking over its shoulder, but looking to scale the heights.

But, it didn’t start out that way when Robinson replaced Aberdeen-bound Jim Goodwin in February 2022, losing eight of his first nine games in charge.

“It’s funny, I only looked at the league table up the way, I didn’t realise how close we were to the bottom,” Robinson told BBC Scotland as he looked back at those difficult early months.

“It certainly wasn’t the way I wanted to start at the football club.

“I remember a cup game against Airdrie and I got absolutely abused. We got beat against Motherwell and it was the Covid times when you got changed behind the stand.

“I had all the Motherwell boys wanting me to clap them from my previous time there and I had the St Mirren fans wanting to kill me, and I had to walk up through the middle of them.

“So, I didn’t acknowledge anybody. That was tough, you do question your decision, you know, what have I done here?

“But I always had a lot of faith in my own ability and the staff that I surround myself with. We had a belief in what we had in the staff that if we got the players in that we wanted we would do well.”

And in St Mirren’s case, they have done.

The legendary Tony Fitzpatrick was lampooned in some quarters for his assertion that they were a top-six club during his time as chief executive.

Not only has Robinson delivered on that score across three successive campaigns, but he has been beating points tallies and win records that Fitzpatrick himself was setting in the 1980s during his time as player and manager.

“Tony’s brilliant, by the way,” Robinson said. “He’s been so supportive of me, even when we had testing times early on when I first came to the club. He’s very much a glass half full guy.

“We’re not a top-six side in terms of our infrastructure. We don’t have the staffing and fanbases that other clubs have.

Robinson, who was capped seven times for Northern Ireland during his playing days at Bournemouth, Preston and Luton, has been linked with several clubs as he continues to impress and, while he remains focused on his job, he admits he continues to harbour certain ambitions.

“I want to manage at the top, top level of the game, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t,” he said.

“If we can do that at St Mirren, if we can keep being a top-six side, fantastic.

“I’d love to manage my country one day. You want to be the best you can be and St Mirren have been fantastic to me and will continue to be.

“The fans now expects to be a top-six side and that’s based on having the same resources to work with. The board increase it every year because we have to to stay on par with the other clubs and that’s a real challenge.

“St Mirren warrant my full dedication and concentration, so my mind’s 100% here. I can’t control what other people write or say, it certainly doesn’t come from me.”

So can there be a silver-lining to the Robinson-era in Paisley? The 50-year-old hopes to use Aberdeen’s Scottish Cup success and the celebrations that followed as inspiration as he eyes up similar scenes in Paisley next season.

“When you’re in Scotland, you probably have to accept that you’re not going to win the league, if you’re realistic” Robinson said.

“But, you can always win a cup. You need a bit of luck, you need a good draw, or get a good run and I’ve not managed that at St Mirren.

“[Aberdeen winning the Scottish Cup] is good for Scottish football. It was good to see.

“I’ve been to finals twice with Motherwell and I saw what it did to the town, the togetherness it brought, so that is certainly a driving force.

“My head of recruitment Martin Foyle said ‘you could do with a cup run’ and I’m like ‘thanks Martin, I know that and we’re trying’.

“It’s something that will drive us forward and it is one of our aims.”