Tournament hosts Cyprus Under-17s will face Czech Republic Under-17s in Monday's European Under-17 Championship clash.
Cyprus are making their debut at the tournament, while Czech Republic are making their seventh appearance in the competition.
Match preview
Cyprus have failed to appear at any of the previous 20 editions of the European Under-17 Championship, but they will end that long wait when they take to the pitch at AEK Arena on Monday.
As the tournament hosts, they were awarded automatic qualification and drawn in a group alongside the Czech Republic, Serbia and Ukraine.
Cyprus will be dreaming of reaching the knockout rounds at their home tournament, but that may be an outlandish objective for the only debutants in the competition.
They have experienced an underwhelming run of results in 2024, having won one, drawn two and lost four of their seven friendly matches.
After losing 4-0 to Germany on Tuesday, Cyprus will be hoping to produce a positive response in their tournament opener.
The Czech Republic are set to make their first tournament appearance since 2019 after successfully negotiating their way through the qualifying process.
They picked up six points from three matches to progress to the elite round, where they collected the same number of points to finish in the top two.
In the final round of qualifying, the Czech Republic beat Belarus and Bosnia and Herzegovina without conceding, before falling to a narrow 2-1 defeat in their final match against Poland.
As they turn their focus to the main tournament, the Czech Republic will struggle to replicate the performance that they produced in 2006 when they finished runners-up to Russia.
On this occasion, their main focus will be on progressing from the group, having failed to reach the knockout rounds in each of their last four appearances.
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Team News
Stavros Panagi is set to feature in goal for the tournament hosts, while Kosmas Ioannou is expected to partner Rafail Dimosthenous in central defence.
Stavros Dimosthenous and Christos Loukadis are both likely to start and will look to offer Cyprus' main goal threat in Monday's contest.
As for the visitors, Matyas Silhavy is expected to line up between the posts, with Jiri Micek and Dennis Krpalek set to operate as the two centre-backs.
Juventus youngster Adam Sosna could presented with a starting spot, and he could be joined in the front three by Matyas Nechvatal and Ondrej Penxa.
Cyprus Under-17s possible starting lineup:
Panagi; Petoussis, Ioannou, R Dimosthenous, Michalas; Sgafi, Christodoulou, Hadjilefteri, Nikolaou; Loukadis, S Dimosthenous
Czech Republic Under-17s possible starting lineup:
Silhavy; Siegl, Micek, Krpalek, Kolisek; Naskos, Sloncik, Moudry; Penxa, Sosna, Nechvatal
We say: Cyprus Under-17s 0-2 Czech Republic Under-17s
As tournament hosts, Cyprus will be desperate to give a good account of themselves on Monday, but we think that they could experience a disappointing result against a Czech Republic side that should have the extra quality required to kick off their campaign with a win.
For data analysis of the most likely results, scorelines and more for this match please click here.
