England’s Harry Kane kept away from the ball by Portugal’s Tiago Ilori during Thursday night’s Group B match.Gareth Southgate is confident England Under-21s will avoid a third straight group-stage tournament exit, despite starting their European Championship campaign with defeat to Portugal on Thursday.
This is the Young Lions’ fifth straight appearance at the finals, but their six-year wait for a victory on this stage continued during a frustrating night in Uherske Hra-diste, Czech Republic.
England matched Portugal for large chunks of the Group B encounter, but they fell just short as Joao Mario’s second-half strike condemned Southgate’s men to a 1-0 defeat.
“I think we’ve played the best team in the group here and ran them very close,” the England head coach said afterwards.
“They have some excellent players as we have got and from what I have seen we can still have faith in what we do.
The bruising build-up to this match certainly had a big impact, with Southgate robbed of two key men in the 48 hours leading up to the opening game.
Suspected concussion has seen John Stones ruled out for two matches and a knee injury meant Saido Berahino had to withdraw from the squad.
Stones should be available for England’s final group game against Italy, but Southgate is well aware their fate could be sealed by that point.
Sweden, their next opponents, secured a surprise victory against Italy and return to Olomouc looking to repeat the feat in the early kick-off tomorrow.
“We play first so we have to go for the win,” Southgate said.
“We have to make sure our mentality is right and we approach things in the same way we did before this game. I don’t think we were a million miles away.”
Italy coach Luigi Di Biagio said his team failed to kill off the game as Isaac Kiese Thelin converted a late penalty for Sweden to come from behind and win 2-1.
“I think that we failed to kill off the game when we leading 1-0, and later it turned on its head and it finished the way it did,” Di Biagio said.
“We shouldn’t have lowered the rhythm... that was something to avoid. We also had to be more clinical and confident in attack.
“Sweden won, because they are very good. They didn’t give up, and that changed the match.”
Group A
| P | W | D | L | F | A | Pts | |
| Denmark | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 3 |
| Germany | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Serbia | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Czech Rep. | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0 |
Group B
| P | W | D | L | F | A | Pts | |
| Sweden | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 3 |
| Portugal | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 3 |
| Italy | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0 |
| England | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
Next matches
Today: 18.00 Serbia vs Czech Rep; 20.45 Germany vs Denmark.
Tomorrow: 18.00 Sweden vs England; 20.45 Italy vs Portugal.