RYAN Bertrand has earned his first England Under-21 call-up for next week's European Championship qualifier against Portugal.

Speaking exclusively to canaries.co.uk, the Chelsea youngster said he was delighted at the chance to represent his country: "I'm very happy and it's a really good thing for me, it was a suprise to be honest.

"I'm expecting Portugal to be a really good team, I thought I would have been called up in the last game which was a friendly, but this is an actual qualifier so I'm expecting the opposition to have a really strong team."

Bertrand will be part of Stuart Pearce's 25-man party travelling to the game, which will be held at Wembley on Friday, September 5th, 7.45pm KO. Former Norwich youngster Joe Lewis retains his place in the squad.

Bertrand featured in this summer's European U-19 Championships in the Czech Republic, where England failed to make it through to the semi-finals.