In just 7 days, the U-21 European Championships group stage has come to a close, a tournament whose peculiar scheduling and lack of preparation haven’t taken any of the spectacles away. In the 24 group stage matches, we witnessed captivating individual performances, fluent midfield dominations, and more than enough goalkeeping errors.

Though many of the sides were without their most valuable players due to the tournament coinciding with the first World Cup qualifiers, the talent on hand could still turn the group stage into a gripping affair from start to finish, with new stars rising where others would have ordinarily taken their place.

In this piece, we look at each nation’s performance in the group stages, looking at what went wrong for the countries whose dreams have been cut short, and how the remaining 8 nations stack up when the knockout stages begin in 2 months' time.

Group A