2024 Under-17 EURO semi-final preview: Serbia vs Portugal, Denmark vs Italy

The UEFA European Under-17 Championship semi-finals are on Sunday in Larnaca with Serbia playing Portugal and Denmark facing Italy for spots in Wednesday's Limassol decider.

Serbia vs Portugal

Serbia made their second semi-final in three years with Wednesday's 3-2 defeat of Group B winners Austria, who scored inside 30 seconds before Djordje Ranković struck twice and made another for Mihajlo Cvetković. A campaign that began with Dušan Makević's stunning early winner against Ukraine and comeback 3-1 defeat of hosts Cyprus continued with a thrilling 4-3 loss to Czechia that cost Serbia top spot in Group A but now they hope to reach a first final at this level, having fallen on penalties to the Netherlands in the 2022 last four.

Oddly enough, Portugal also lost a 2022 semi-final on penalties, in their case to France, but already have U17 titles from 2003 and 2016. In Group D a 2-1 comeback defeat of Spain and stylish 4-1 win against England meant they could afford a 2-1 loss to Italy and still finish top, and it was 2-1 against Poland on Thursday, Eduardo Felicíssimo and Rodrigo Mora on target.

Mora is joint finals top scorer on four goals with eliminated quartet Oghenetejiri Adejenughure (Austria), Michael Izunwanne (Poland), Mikey Moore (England) and Ondřej Penxa (Czechia), and has spearheaded some fine displays of attacking football.

Uroš Djorsjević (the one that wears No11 as there are two players of that name in the squad) and Stefan Mladenović are both suspended for Serbia, as is head coach Jovan Damjanović.

Jovan Damjanović, Serbia coach: "I have a lot of faith in these guys, I had no doubt that they would deliver all this the right way. These new generations coming are good; we have to nurture them."

João Santos, Portugal coach: "We now have another tough match. If [Serbia] have made the semi-finals they have a lot of quality so we will have to fight to be in the final.”

• Veljko Milosavljević, Nikola Simić, Mihajlo Cvetković, Andrija Maksimović and Viktor Stojanović were also in the 2023 Serbia squad that made the last eight.
• Portugal played at AEK Arena in a preparation tournament last October, defeating Cyprus 7-0 with goals from Gabriel Silva, João Trovisco, Afonso Vieira, Rui Silva, Martim Cunha, Afonso Patrão and Cardoso Varela. They won all three games in that mini-tournament.

Denmark vs Italy

Both these sides won penalty shoot-outs to reach the last four. Denmark pipped Czechia 5-3 following a 1-1 draw earned by a late equaliser from their prolific Arsenal striker Chido Obi. Italy then did the same to England, Mattia Liberali scoring a brilliant solo equaliser and the shoot-out ending 5-4, capping a magnificent display by keeper Alessandro Longoni.

Obi also scored when Denmark opened Group B by beating Wales 2-0 but they then drew with Croatia 2-2 and lost 4-0 to Austria to only just scrape through. However, their patient football has now got them to within one step of a debut final.

Italy beat Poland 2-0, Slovakia 2-0 and Sweden 2-1 in Group B, their squad full of promising talents like AC Milan winger Liberali and club-mate Francesco Camarda, who earlier this season became the youngest-ever Serie A player. Both, along with Emanuele Sala, took part in April's UEFA Youth League final, an U19 competition.

Italy beat Denmark 3-1 in September in a friendly tournament in Bonn. Liberali scored in first-half added time and Camarda made it 2-0; Obi pulled one back before Elia Plicco (not in Italy's 20 in Cyprus) struck late on.

Jesper Mikkelsen, Denmark coach: “It is going to be a tough match. We have played and lost against them, it was pretty even but we were the second best team so of course it is going to be a great challenge.”

Massimiliano Favo, Italy coach: "We deserve to be in the semi-finals. We know Denmark. We faced them at the beginning of the season."

• Denmark's only previous U17 EURO semi-final was in 2011, under Thomas Frank.
• Italy are the only one of the four semi-finalists still unbeaten in the competition.