1990 UEFA European Under-21 Championship

The 1990 UEFA European Under-21 Championship, which spanned two years (1988–90), had 30 entrants. San Marino competed for the first time. USSR U-21s won the competition.

The 30 national teams were divided into eight groups (six groups of 4 + two groups of 3). The group winners played off against each other on a two-legged home-and-away basis until the winner was decided. There was no finals tournament or 3rd-place playoff.

Draw
The allocation of teams into qualifying groups was based on that of 1990 FIFA World Cup qualification with several changes, reflecting the absence of some nations:
 * Groups 1 and 2 featured the same nations
 * Group 3 did not include Iceland (moved to Group 4)
 * Group 4 did not include Wales, but included Iceland (moved from Group 3)
 * Group 5 did not include Cyprus (moved to Group 6)
 * Group 6 did not include Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland and Malta, but included Cyprus (moved from Group 5)
 * Group 7 did not include Switzerland (moved to Group 8)
 * Group 8 composed of Switzerland (moved from Group 7), Italy and San Marino (both of whom did not participate in World Cup qualification)

Qualified teams

 * 1 Bold indicates champion for that year

Goalscorers

 * 3 goals
 * Davor Šuker
 * Andriy Sydelnykov


 * 2 goals


 * 🇮🇹 Giovanni Stroppa
 * 🇸🇪 Kennet Andersson
 * 🇸🇪 Tomas Brolin
 * 🇸🇪 Ulrik Jansson
 * Igor Shalimov
 * Igor Dobrovolskiy
 * Alen Bokšić


 * 1 goal


 * 🇨🇿 Horst Siegl
 * 🇩🇪 Christian Hochstätter
 * 🇮🇹 Pierluigi Casiraghi
 * 🇮🇹 Marco Simone
 * 🇪🇸 Fernando Hierro
 * 🇪🇸 Ricardo Mendiguren
 * 🇸🇪 Stefan Rehn
 * Dmitriy Chugunov
 * Igor Kolyvanov
 * Andrey Kanchelskis
 * Sergey Kiryakov
 * Aleksandr Mostovoi
 * Zvonimir Boban
 * Robert Jarni
 * Robert Prosinečki


 * Own goal
 * Andriy Bal (playing against West Germany)
 * Miroslav Đukić (playing against Italy)