Pione Sisto (Denmark)
A name you could well be very tired of by the end of the summer. The Danish Superliga player of the year in 2014, who scored a hat-trick on his debut for the Under-21 side, Sisto’s probable departure from FC Midtjylland will likely be an ever-present gossip columns until the window slams shut in September. The left-sided midfielder has been linked to, among others, Barcelona, Juventus, Milan, Manchester City, Arsenal and Porto, which tells you something about the promise he has shown. He was among the half-dozen Under-21 players to join up with the senior squad for their Euro 2016 qualifier against Serbia, his first call-up having been granted Danish citizenship in December last year and cleared to play for his country by Fifa last month. Sisto, whose family fled the Ugandan civil war when he was six months old, helped Midtjylland to their first league title this season and has drawn comparisons to his compatriot Christian Eriksen.
Johannes Geis (Germany)
Germany’s squad contains a World Cup winner in the shape of Matthias Ginter but the standout star might well be the Mainz defensive midfielder who models his game on Bastian Schweinsteiger. Blessed with exceptional positional sense and a creative ability that few holding midfielders can match, his form at mid-table Mainz, where he was an ever-present in the Bundesliga has had scouts beating a regular path to the Coface Arena – a summer move to Lazio or Borussia Dortmund has been mooted and he seems certain to be a Champions League player before too much longer. There’s plenty of other talent in the German squad to look out for – the captain Kevin Volland just missed out on the 2014 World Cup squad, Marc-André ter Stegen was Barcelona’s goalkeeper in their Champions League campaign and the 19-year-old Max Meyer already has a cap for Joachim Löw’s senior side.
Raphaël Guerreiro (Portugal)
Portugal’s strength is in midfield and at the back, with the left-back Guerreiro perhaps the pick of the defensive unit. The Lorient player, whose father is Portuguese and mother is French, was born in a suburb north of Paris and spent time at the Clairefontaine academy as a teenager. Indeed, he has struggled with the language barrier when called up to the Portugal international set-up. Those problems seem to be behind him now and his form for Lorient in Ligue 1 has seen him linked with moves to Arsenal and Paris Saint-Germain this summer. Another rumoured Arsenal target, the defensive midfielder William Carvalho, is another member of Rui Jorge’s side to watch.
Alessio Romagnoli (Italy)
Italy are the only team at the tournament not to boast a single full international cap in their 23-man squad, but that does not mean they are without stars. Since the retirements of Alessandro Nesta and Fabio Cannavaro the Azzurri have struggled to develop defenders who are worthy heirs to the throne once inhabited by Franco Baresi, Paolo Maldini et al. Hopes are high, though, than in Romagnoli they have uncovered someone who can live up to that fine tradition. The 20-year-old, who can operate in the centre or on the left, spent the season on loan at Sampdoria from Roma, but could well return to the Italian capital next season to play a key role in the side. While he provides solidity at the back, Italy will look to Domenico Berardi to provide cutting edge up front.
Milos Jojic (Serbia)
The Borussia Dortmund midfielder had a meteoric rise in 2014 when he joined Die Schwarzgelben from Partizan Belgrade in January and went on to score four times in the Bundesliga but his progress has stalled this season and he made just a handful of appearances for Jürgen Klopp’s side. Still, in a Serbian team shorn of its three best players – Liverpool’s Lazar Markovic, the Anderlecht striker Aleksandar Mitrovic (player of the tournament in the 2013 Under-19 tournament) and the former Manchester City defender Matija Nastasic – Jojic will be key. And they coped just fine without that trio (and Jojic for that matter) when knocking out Spain in the qualifying play-offs.
Vaclav Kadlec (Czech Republic)
“We see huge potential in the player,” said the Eintracht Frankfurt sporting director, Bruno Hübner, on signing the then 21-year-old Kadlec from Sparta Prague in the summer of 2013, but the transition from the Czech league to the Bundesliga has not been an easy one for the striker, who had become the youngest player to score for the Czech national side when he netted on debut against Liechtenstein in 2010. Ten goals in a season and a half was a disappointing return but he went back to Prague on loan in January and finished the season in fine form, scoring 10 times in just 14 appearances for his boyhood club. He also scored when Czech Republic faced Denmark in November but is suspended for the hosts’ opening game of the tournament against the same opponents here.
