A mixed bag for Blucerchiati stars at EURO U-21 in Poland

The first round of fixtures has just been completed at the European U-21 Championship in Poland, a tournament featuring a healthy dose of Blucerchiati players.

In fact, Sampdoria are level with AC Milan as having the most representatives from an Italian club and have the most number of players from different countries overall – four in total: Poland (Karol Linetty), Portugal (Bruno Fernandes), Czech Republic (Patrik Schick) and Slovakia (Milan Skriniar). Let’s see how the quartet got on their opening matches at the competition.

Group A began with a match between neighbouring countries Poland and Slovakia, pitting club team-mates Skriniar and Linetty against each other. The former came away victorious, as Slovakia overturned a 1-0 deficit to win 2-1. The hosts took an early lead in Lublin, Patryk Lipski breaking the deadlock in the first minute, but Martin Valjent and Pavol Safranko scored one in each half to complete the comeback. Slovakia are alone in top spot in Group A after the 0-0 draw between Sweden and England. Poland will look to bounce back from the defeat this evening against Sweden.

The two favourites in Group B kicked off their Euro campaign with convincing victories, Spain thrashing Macedonia 5-0 and Portugal overcoming tricky customers Serbia 2-0. Portugal skipper Bruno Fernandes doubled his country’s advantage in the 88th minute after Goncalo Guedes had given them a first-half lead in Bydgoszcz. On Tuesday evening, Portugal and Spain face off in Gdynia to secure control of the group.

Schick’s Czech Republic are in a more difficult situation after losing to Germany 2-0 at Tychy Stadium. Max Meyer and Serge Gnabry scored either side of half-time to bag the three points, while the Blucerchiati striker was unable to make a dent in the German backline. The Czechs now face an uphill battle to achieve qualification to the knockout rounds, but it could have been much worse if Davie Selke hadn’t missed a penalty.