Portugal national under-21 football team
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Association | Federação Portuguesa de Futebol |
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| Head coach | Rui Caçador | ||
| Captain | Bruno Pereirinha | ||
| Top scorer | Orlando Sá | ||
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| First international | |||
U23:  Portugal 1-1 Denmark  Lisbon, October 14, 1970 U21:  Luxembourg 1-2 Portugal Esch-sur-Alzette, November 28, 1976 |
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| Biggest win | |||
Portugal 8-1 Armenia  Estoril, August 19, 1997 |
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| Biggest defeat | |||
 Italy 6-0 Portugal Piacenza, December 2, 1987 matches only. |
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| UEFA U-21 Championship | |||
| Appearances | 4 (First in 1994) | ||
| Best result | Runners-up in 1994 | ||
The Portugal national under-21 football team is the national under-21 football team of Portugal and is controlled by the Portuguese Football Federation. They are nicknamed as "Esperanças". Esperança means hope, so, they are Portugal's hopes for the future. In sports, "Esperança" comes before "Senior".
Following the realignment of UEFA's youth competitions in 1976, the Portuguese Under-21 team was formed. Until 1994, the team had a rather poor record - failing to qualify for each of the first eight UEFA U-21 Championships. Since 1994, the team has improved its record greatly, qualifying for five of the next seven tournaments, including the 2006 finals.
Having qualified for the 2006 tournament finals, UEFA announced that Portugal would host the finals in May and June. From 2007 onwards, host nations will be announced before the qualification stage and will not need to qualify.
Since the under-21 competition rules insist that players must be 21 or under at the start of a two year competition, technically it is an U-23 competition. For this reason, Portugal's record in the preceding U-23 competitions is also shown.
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[edit] UEFA U-23 Championship Record
- 1972: Did not qualify. Finished 2nd of 2 in qualification 'group'.
- 1974: Did not qualify. Finished 2nd of 2 in qualification 'group'.
- 1976: Did not qualify. Finished 2nd of 3 in qualification group.
[edit] UEFA U-21 Championship Record
- 1978: Did not qualify. Finished 2nd of 3 in qualification group.
- 1980: Did not qualify. Finished 4th of 4 in qualification group.
- 1982: Did not enter.
- 1984: Losing semi-finalists.
- 1986: Did not qualify. Finished 4th of 4 in qualification group.
- 1988: Did not qualify. Finished 4th of 4 in qualification group.
- 1990: Did not qualify. Finished 3rd of 4 in qualification group.
- 1992: Did not qualify. Finished 2nd of 4 in qualification group.
- 1994: Runners-up.
- 1996: Losing quarter-finalists.
- 1998: Did not qualify. Finished 3rd of 5 in qualification group.
- 2000: Did not qualify. Finished 2nd of 5 in qualification group.
- 2002: Finished 3rd of 4 in finals group.
- 2004: Third place.
- 2006: Finished 4th of 4 in finals group. Hosts.
- 2007: Losing in third place match, therefore missing the Olympics.
[edit] Current Squad
Squad called up for the mini-tournament in Skåne, Sweden, against Sweden, France and the Netherlands.
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* = Over age but have been allowed to participate
[edit] Notable Players
- Luís Figo
- Rui Costa
- João Pinto
- Sérgio Conceição
- Fernando Couto
- Vítor Baía
- Jorge Costa
- Nuno Capucho
- Dimas
- Paulinho Santos
- Paulo Alves
- Dani
- Domingos
- Sá Pinto
- Paulo Sousa
- António Folha
- Carlos Secretário
- Emílio Peixe
- Abel Xavier
- Ricardo Quaresma
- Cristiano Ronaldo
- Nani
- Miguel Veloso
- João Moutinho
- Simão
[edit] See also
[edit] Sources/External links
- UEFA Under-21 website Contains full results archive
- The Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation Contains full record of U-21/U-23 Championships.
- (Portuguese) Official site
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