England Under 19s today experience what the senior side missed out on this summer as the European Championships for their age group commences. Three Chelsea players are involved.

Scott Sinclair, Ryan Bertrand and Jack Cork (pictured) are in the England squad to take on the Czech Republic, the tournament's host nation, this afternoon.

Cork has been handed the captaincy following the late withdrawal through injury of Aston Villa defender Ciaran Clark, a player familiar to Chelsea from last season's FA Youth Cup run.

England U19s coach Brian Eastick has announced that Cork is to move from midfield to right-back to fill a gap left by injury. It's a position the Chelsea Academy product played on-loan at Scunthorpe last season. At England Under 19 level, it has previously been occupied by another Chelsea youngster, Sam Hutchinson, until his own injury problems.

'Scunthorpe didn't do too well in the Championship last season but his [Cork's] performances were very good. He has earned his chance,' said Eastick.

Left-back Ryan Bertrand, who will spend the first half of the coming season on-loan at Norwich, and winger Scott Sinclair are both regular starters at international level.

The England squad also contains Daniel Sturridge and Ben Mee, scorers against Chelsea for Man City over the two legs of the FA Youth Cup Final. Freddie Sears, who played seven times in the West Ham first team last season, is also involved.

Today's game takes place in Jablonec, the town near the Polish border that hosted Chelsea's 1994 Cup Winners' Cup match against Viktoria Zizkov, a tie that marked a return to European competition after a 23-year absence.

After meeting the Czech youngsters, England will play Italy on Thursday and Greece on Sunday, the top two sides from the group progressing to the semi-finals.

One senior international likely to be keeping an eye on events is Petr Cech. He was given the honour of drawing the teams out the pot for the group stage.

'I played a lot of international games at youth level and the experience really helped me when I joined the senior team,' the Chelsea keeper told uefa.com ahead of the tournament.

'International games are always big matches, whether it's at Under 17, 19 or 21 level. You always have big crowds and the games are live on TV, and some of the guys have never played live television games. This kind of experience helps you to play better.'

It's a view Cork can understand. Speaking to thefa.com, the new England skipper said:

'Every game that we play in the Czech Republic is going to be in front of a big crowd and some are going to be on television, so it's a great opportunity for our players to go out and impress all of the people watching.

'For me, Scunthorpe was a great learning experience, it helped me learn a lot. I played a lot of games.

'For England, we have had a great record this year of only losing one in ten so that has given us confidence and if we play to our potential, we have a great chance of winning it.'

Today's game kicks-off at 4.30pm UK time and is live on British Eurosport and via uefa.com