| Event | 1978 UEFA European Under-21 Championship | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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| on aggregate | |||||||
| First leg | |||||||
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| Date | 17 May 1978 | ||||||
| Venue | Kurt-Wabbel-Stadion, Halle | ||||||
| Referee | Georges Konrath (France) | ||||||
| Attendance | 18,000 | ||||||
| Second leg | |||||||
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| Date | 31 May 1978 | ||||||
| Venue | Pod Bijelim Brijegom, Mostar | ||||||
| Referee | Franz Wöhrer (Austria) | ||||||
| Attendance | 30,000 | ||||||
The 1978 UEFA European Under-21 Championship Final was a two-legged football tie played in May 1978 to determine the winners of the inaugural UEFA European Under-21 Championship. The tie, contested by East Germany and Yugoslavia, was played over two home and away legs, at the Kurt-Wabbel-Stadion in Halle and the Pod Bijelim Brijegom in Mostar.
Yugoslavia won the first match in East Germany 1–0 through a goal by Vahid Halilhodžić. The the second leg in Mostar was a much more dramatic affair, with seven goals scored in the opening 36 minutes in Mostar, including braces from both teams' star strikers Valilhodžić and Dieter Kühn. The final goal for a 4–4 draw and Yugoslavia's win 5–4 on aggregate was scored by Srećko Bogdan.
For Yugoslavia, coached by Ivan Toplak, this was the first and only Under-21 title in history. Their only other appearance in the final came 12 years later in the 1990 final when they lost to Soviet Union before the country broke up in the early 1990s.
East Germany managed to reach the final again in the next edition of the competition in 1980, where they lost to Soviet Union. They failed to qualify for the tournament in the next five editions before the country was reunified with West Germany in 1990 and ceased to exist.
Since UEFA had realigned youth competitions in 1976 and turned them into biennial tournaments consisting of qualifiers and a knockout stage, eligibility rules stipulated that players must not be older than 21 at the beginning of the tournament. As qualifiers were played between late 1976 and late 1977 and the knockout stage from March to May 1978, it meant that the final was effectively an Under-23 event.