The knock-out stages of the UEFA European Championships 2020, being played in 2021, start this weekend and three Brentford players are still involved. There were 24 teams in six groups that played 36 games over 13 days to set up a Second Round, or last 16. The first of those games will be tomorrow, Saturday 26 June, and there will be eight matches over four days.

Five Brentford players started the tournament and they made nine appearances between them, but only three remain involved. When Halil Dervişoğlu played for Turkey against Italy last week, he became the first contracted Brentford player to appear in the tournament. He followed in the footsteps of Henrik Dalsgaard, who is the only player to be on Brentford books and appear in a FIFA World Cup, as well Julian Jeanvier and Kamohelo Mokotjo, who appeared in the Africa Cup of Nations in 2019. Halil appeared twice for Turkey but they lost all three games and were eliminated.

Also heading home are Marcus Forss and Finland. They beat Denmark in a game that will only ever be remembered for the remarkable work done to save the life of Christian Eriksen, who had a cardiac arrest on the pitch. However, defeats to Russia and Belgium left Finland third in Group B. The four best third-placed teams progressed to the later stages but Finland were ranked as fifth-best and were eliminated.

Denmark did manage to progress from Group B and their Brentford representatives helped them on the way. Mathias Jensen and Christian Nørgaard both played the later stages of Denmark's 4-1 win over Russia that secured their progress. Mathias has been involved in all three games so far while Christian has played two. Pontus Jansson is in the Sweden squad and has been an unused substitute so far as they won Group E to also reach the knock-out stages.

Denmark are in action first, playing Wales tomorrow. That match will be played in Amsterdam and will kick-off at 5pm. Sweden and Pontus play Ukraine in Glasgow on Tuesday, 29 June. If Denmark progress they then head to Azerbaijan and will face Czech Republic or The Netherlands. Sweden will face the winner of the England v Germany game in the last eight if they progress.

The Quarter Finals will be held next weekend and our players could be involved in Semi-Finals in the first week of July. The event will run until 11 July, when the final will be held at Wembley Stadium in London. We will keep you up to date with all Brentford involvement in the event.