Under 20 World Cup

jeudi 4 juin 2015

With the women's tournament about to start and some fuss in Switzerland, this tournament has, no doubt, been receiving negligible coverage. It's not as if youth football or a tournament without a British team is going to attract much attention from the British press at the best of times.

Today is the first day of the final round of the group stages. There are six groups with the top two in each going through along with four of the third placed teams. Here's how the groups stack up:

Group A
US has two wins and is through to the round of sixteen. Ukraine has a win and a draw and will go to the next round too. They play each other today. The other game today is New Zealand, who drew with UKR, and Myanmar, who have shipped eight goals in their two defeats. A kiwi win should see NZL through. MYA may squeeze through if they win though their GD is dismal.

Group B
In the first pair of matches there were two draws - I was there: good games. Then Ghana deservedly defeated Argentina (South America's top qualifier) and Austria edged Panama. That probably puts GHA and AUS into the knockout stages. Today PAN needs to beat GHA and ARG need to beat AUS. It's possible that this group could end in a four way tie with a team eliminated on GD!

Group C
Portugal has been very impressive beating Senegal 3-0 and Qatar 4-0. Colombia drew with Senegal and beat Qatar so they should go through even as a third placed team if they lose to Portugal tomorrow.

Group D
Every team has a win and a loss and this group is wide open. Serbia lost to Uruguay who then lost to Mexico who were defeated by Mali who Serbia defeated. SRB v MEX and MLI v URU.

Group E
Brazil cruised to a win over Nigeria and Hungary smashed North Korea 5-1 with a Mervo hat trick. NGA bounced back destroying the hapless Koreans 4-0. BRA then beat HUN 2-1 with a controversial late penalty. Much as I want Nigeria to advance, it would be unjust if Hungary was eliminated after such an egregious piece of refereeing - they play each other on Sunday local time. The other game is a dead rubber.

Group F
Germany destroyed Fiji 8-1 then rolled Uzbekistan 3-0 and are already in the next round. Honduras edged UZB 4-3. Then the shock of the tournament: HON 0 - FIJ 3! That is not a typo. Fiji, with a footballing population roughly equivalent to a mid sized secondary school only needs a draw to make the next round because, let's face it, Honduras won't beat the Germans.

Videos here:
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Check out the Panamanians first goal against Argentina for example - a sublime strike.


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