U17 EURO finals: Knockout stage round-up

France and the Netherlands will go head-to-head in Wednesday's 2022 UEFA European Under-17 Championship final after both came through tense semi-final encounters at the Netanya Stadium on Sunday.

Semi-finals

France secured their place first thanks to a penalty shoot-out defeat of Portugal. Warren Zaire Emery's eighth-minute opener was quickly cancelled out as Afonso Moreira and Dário Essugo – with one of the all-time great U17 EURO goals – put Portugal in front. José Lima's team stayed there until João Muniz's own goal in first-half added time, and with no further changes to the scoreline, France headed into their second successive shoot-out.

It was almost as dramatic as their quarter-final defeat of Germany as Mathys Tel – France's fifth taker – saw his spot-kick go in via the crossbar and the back of goalkeeper Diogo Fernandes to keep his country in the tie by the narrowest of margins. Lisandru Olmeta stopped Manuel Mendonça's penalty before El-Chadaille Bitshiabu found the net to spark French celebrations.

There was jubilation too for the Netherlands as they clinched a third consecutive final berth following their championship wins in 2018 and 2019. Mischa Visser's team went in front thanks to Jason van Duiven, but Serbia bounced back to lead via Jovan Mijatović and Jovan Milošević, who now has a tournament-leading five goals. Jaden Slory equalised to take the tie into a penalty shoot-out, and after Mateja Radonjić's effort was saved, Isaac Babadi chipped home the decisive spot kick.

Quarter-finals

Serbia secured a first-ever U17 EURO semi-final spot thanks to a 2-1 defeat of Denmark. Jan-Carlo Simić got an early opener in Nes-Ziona, and though Emil Højlund levelled shortly after the interval for the Group D winners, the prolific Milošević scored his fourth goal in as many final tournament games to take Radovan Krivokapić's side through.

It was a similar story between Portugal and Spain in Netanya, where Javier Boñar's mistake helped Afonso Moreira open the scoring for the Portuguese. The Spain captain did not take long to atone with the equaliser, but José Rodrigues' second-half penalty took Portugal into the last four.

France recovered from missing their first two penalties to defeat Germany 4-3 in a shoot-out and become the first team through to the last four. José Alcocer's men had been pegged back after Tom Saettel had given them the lead, and they were on the brink of elimination before turning things round thanks to Olmeta making a save and their opponents losing their nerve.

The Netherlands also progressed after seeing off Italy, the nation they had defeated in the last two finals. Gabriel Misehouy and Van Duiven got the Dutch goals in a 2-1 triumph to keep the holders in the running.