Contrasting emotions for United teammates as England squad finalised for Euro U19 finals

As we reported a fortnight ago, Danny Welbeck and Ben Amos both recieved call-ups to the provisional England squad for the upcoming U19 European Championships, and faced a nervous wait until the announcement of the final 18-man party. That announcement has been made today, and there’s good news and bad news.

The good news is that, as expected, Danny Welbeck will be part of the 18 making the trip to the Czech Republic next week. Welbeck was a key player for the U18’s last season under coach Brian Eastick, who is also in charge of the U19’s, and there was never any real doubts over his inclusion in the final squad. The bad news is that Ben Amos misses out, as was widely feared. Ben was competing with Spurs’ David Button for the role of back-up to Middlesbrough keeper Jason Steele, and Button’s previous experience at U19 level and in senior league football has earned him the nod. It’s a disappointing start to the new season for the young United custodian but there is a potential upside – with Ron-Robert Zieler likely to travel with the first-team on their South Africa tour as back-up to Ben Foster (in the absence of Edwin van der Sar and Tomasz Kuszczak, vacationing and injured respectively), Amos will get the opportunity to stake a claim for the Reserves’ #1 jersey in the run of friendlies over the next few weeks.

England’s first game in the tournament is a clash with the host on Monday week, a match that will be shown live on Eurosport for those wishing to follow Danny Welbeck’s progress. We’ll have full coverage of Danny’s participation in the tournament here on United Youth.