England Seeded To Regain European Junior Team Title In Belgium

England have been named as top seeds for the European Junior U19 Team Championships which get underway tomorrow in Brussels, Belgium.

In a shock upset in last year's final, Germany beat England - thus, not only winning the crown for the first time, but also ending England's 20-year grip on the title!

The 2007 favourites - led by Surrey's Joe Lee and Bedfordshire's Victoria Lust, runners-up in this week's individual men's and women's European Junior U19 Championships, respectively - are expected to meet France in Sunday's final.

France, who have finished three times as runners-up since 1993, are second seeds. The team will be led by Camille Serme, who this week secured the women's individual title for the second year running.

Switzerland's new men's champion Nicolas Mueller will be hoping to lead his country to their best success since 2002 as fifth seeds.

The 15 nations competing in the event will play initially in four qualifying groups, as follows (seeding in brackets):

Pool A: [1] ENGLAND, [8] DENMARK, [9] FINLAND
Pool B: [2] FRANCE, [7] WALES, [10] BELGIUM, [15] SWEDEN
Pool C: [3] GERMANY, [6] CZECH REPUBLIC, [11] SCOTLAND, [14] IRELAND
Pool D: [4] NETHERLANDS, [5] SWITZERLAND, [12] SPAIN, [13] ISRAEL