Grand Duchy prepares for Elite test

Luxembourg will look to make the most of home advantage as Group 3 of the UEFA European Under-17 Championship Elite round gets under way on Thursday. The hosts welcome the Netherlands, the 2007/08 competition runners-up, as well as Croatia and Azerbaijan. uefa.com previews all four sides' form ahead of the section openers.

LUXEMBOURG
The Grand Duchy have played three warm-up games in anticipation of the Elite round. They started off with a 5-0 loss to Germany before picking up a 1-1 draw against Belgium. Their latest outing was against Georgia, against whom they suffered a 2-0 defeat, and although many players are based in the youth academies outside Luxembourg, German coach Tobias Zölle believes his side are well prepared, with most of the squad having played together since their U13 days. "We have good teams in our group," he added, "especially Croatia and the Netherlands who won their groups, but Azerbaijan as well."

Qualifying round: Republic of Ireland 1-1, Greece 0-0, Andorra 3-1 (Group 5 runners-up)

Key players: Maurice Deville (forward, TSV Alemannia Aachen), Aydine Correia (striker, CS Sedan-Ardennes)

NETHERLANDS
Oranje coach Alfred Stuivenberg took his side to La Manga in early February for a mini-tournament. The Dutch opened up with a 2-2 draw against Norway, but then lost 4-0 to the Czech Republic before another 2-2 tie, this time with Turkey. They played Hungary on 4 March, but despite scoring twice, again only managed a draw. "I saw a good level of development from the team in matches against strong opponents," said Stuivenberg, who was in charge as the Dutch reached last year's semi-finals but still feels his team need to be more ruthless, given the fact they surrendered leads against Turkey and Hungary. "During the Elite round we will have to convert our opportunities better and make sure that we can keep dominating a match until the end."

Qualifying round: Cyprus 0-0, Latvia 3-0, Italy 5-2 (Group 9 winners)

Key players: Shabir Isoufi (attacking midfielder, Feyenoord), Oguzhan Özyakup (midfielder, Arsenal FC), Luc Castaignos (striker, Feyenoord)

CROATIA
Croatia had a 100 per cent record in the qualifying round, but a repeat performance at this stage will not be so easy especially with key players Nikša Petrović and Filip Vukić missing through injury. Ivan Gudelj's side also lost their latest friendly match, 1-0 against Slovenia, but the coach is still optimistic despite labelling the Netherlands as the clear favourites to progress. "They are always very strong," Gudelj said, "but we are planning to win all the games and reach the next phase. We have a good generation of players and anything can happen in a match. The guys have done really well so far and we're confident they can continue in this vein."

Qualifying round: Sweden 1-0, Moldova 3-0, Serbia 2-1 (Group 6 winners)

Key players: Ivan Plum (forward, NK Osijek), Dominik Picak (goalkeeper, NK Dinamo Zagreb), Matija Mišić (midfielder, NK Osijek)

AZERBAIJAN
Ahead of their Group 3 campaign, Azerbaijan met Georgia in Baku for two friendly matches at the end of February. Both ended in goalless draws, but there is plenty of excitement in the camp after the team's achievement in making it this far. Coach Bernhard Lippert said: "The fact that we are in the Elite round is a success in itself but we want to create a huge upset."

Qualifying round: Bulgaria 3-1, Montenegro 2-2, Poland 0-2 (Group 8 runners-up)

Key players: Tarlan Mamedov (defender, PFC Neftçi), Gara Garaev (midfielder, FK Qarabağ), Amit Guluzade (midfielder, PFC Neftçi)

By Matthias Rötters, Berend Scholten, Erkin Ibragimov & Elvir Islamović