Villa winger James Milner is aiming to make it third time lucky in the European under-21 Championship final after finally overcoming his semi-final hoodoo.

England face arch-rivals Germany in Malmo this evening after sneaking past hosts Sweden 5-4 on penalties on Friday.

The victory will have come as a particular relief to Milner who missed England’s opening spot-kick – the second time he has failed to convert a penalty at the tournament .

Milner had previously been involved in semi-final shoot-out defeats to hosts Portugal as an under-17 international and Holland with the under-21′s in his last two international tournaments.

Now with those memories now erased the 23-year-old, who is eligible because he was 21 when the qualifying process began, is determined his final junior England appearance will have a happy ending.

He said: “I’ve played in two tournaments already, this is my third.

“The other two I lost to the hosts on penalties in the semi-finals, so hopefully we can go one better this time and win it.]

“You always want to play in the biggest games and be as successful as you can, whether it’s for your club, whether it’s in Europe or for your international team.

“It would be a massive boost if we could win this. Look at the Spanish players who won the European Championship and so many played in the under-21s.

“If we get into the winning mentality at youth level we can take that into the senior side.”