Austria seal early passage to semi-finals

Austria booked their place in the semi-finals of the UEFA European Under-19 Championship with a Group A game to spare thanks to a 3-0 win against Israel.

• Bytyqi and Grillitsch score in first half
• Grubeck seals Austria's second Group A win
• Point-less Israel out; Austria v Portugal for first place

Sinan Bytyqi converted his second penalty in as many games before Florian Grillitsch opened his tournament account before half-time. Israel put up a valliant effort but could not prevent Valentin Grubeck from adding a third less than 60 seconds after his 72nd-minute introduction. Austria will play Portugal, who confirmed their presence in the last four with a 6-1 defeat of Hungary, on Friday to decide who wins the section.

Austria had to defend during the early stages, but in Grillitsch they always had a target to aim for. When he was found in the 28th minute, his turn was too much for Dan Leon Glazer, whose foul resulted in a penalty. Bytyqi made no mistake from the spot.

Though both sides were struggling with the slippery conditions, Austria struck again before the break, Sascha Horvath setting Grillitsch up for a header. Grubeck was sent on with 18 minutes remaining and swiftly got his name on the scoresheet, sneaking into the penalty box unmarked to head in Bytyqi's cross from close range.

Andreas Heraf, Austria coach
We didn't take any risks and kept things tight. We had a few hairy moments to start with, but when we took the lead, that was it really. You could see that we play good football and we have solid foundations. When you have such solid foundations, you can start to focus on yourself more.

Many nations are stronger than us, in terms of quality and size. We don't have that advantage. We have to look at where we can be better than our opponents. We are not going to be the best footballing team. We have some good players of course, we're not going to dominate anybody, but we can be such a nuisance to our opponents and frustrate them. That's what we keep on doing. We've got the players to do that. We've become a hard team to beat.