The CONCACAF qualifying has already started for the U-20 Tournament in Uzbekistan. USA, Mexico & Canada have qualified for the final tournament. The Central America Zone has completed their qualifying with Panama & Costa Rica advancing, while in CFU Zone has Trinidad & Tobago, Cayman Islands, Cuba & Jamaica advancing to the 8 team CFU final where the top three teams will advance to the CONCACAF U-20 Final. http://www.concacaf.com/page/WUnder20s/Schedule/0,,12813,00.html For more informations, don't forget to check the Wikipedia article.
The AFC U-19 qualifier was recently wrapped up on October 16 with Japan, China & North Korea qualifying. South Korea, Australia & Vietnam also competed in the AFC final tournament. http://www.the-afc.com/en/afc-u19-w...1-schedule-a-results?view=Competitions&id=391
The CAF recently announced the qualifiying draw for U-20 tournament. PRELIMINARY ROUND - 10/29/2011 & 11/19/2011 Guinea vs. Sierra Leone - GUINEA W/D Kenya vs. Lesotho Comoros vs. Botswana FIRST ROUND - 2/18/2012 & 3/3/2012 Sierra Leone vs. Nigeria Zimbabwe vs. Mozambique Mali vs. Equatorial Guinea Cameroon vs. RD Congo Kenya/Lesotho winner vs. Zambia Morocco vs. Tunisia Comoros/Botswana winner vs. South Africa Namibia vs. Ghana SECOND ROUND - 3/31/2012 & 4/14/2012 Sierra Leone/Nigeria winner vs. Zimbabwe/Mozambique winner Mali/Equatorial Guinea winner vs. Cameroon/RD Congo winner Kenya/Lesotho/Zambia winner vs. Morocco/Tunisia winner Comoros/Botswana/South Arica winner vs. Namibia/Ghana winner The final round will be held at the end of May, seeing the top two advance to the U-20 WWC.
The European qualification is already completed, with Germany, Norway, Italy and Switzerland qualifying.
I hope Switzerland will perform better than during the 2010 U-20 World Cup. They were lucky to qualify at all, because during the EURO the best 4 teams were all in one group (Germany, Norway, Spain, Netherlands), so two of them had to be eliminated. In the semifinals Switzerland stood no chance against Germany, however Italy did quite well against Norway. But you have to consider that they played at home.
To be fair, Norway stood no chance against Germany either. Also, Switzerland's and Norway's '92-borns played a friendly in May 2010; Switzerland won 3-2. They'll play again in November. Norway's a bit of a wild card too. As the league season will be played during the U-20 World Cup, and our federation haven't really been good at juggling the different international tournaments, it's hard to say how many of the best talents that will actually play.
Well the group match was quite balanced, despite the 3:1 score. Just before Germany scored their 3rd goal, Norway wasted a big chance to equalize. I watched both match the semifinal and the final and I think despite the score line Norway were the harder opponent. However after Germany scored two quick goals in the second half Norway just gave up and made it easy for Germany to score more. Thanks, let's see how well Switzerland are doing then. I hope they can field their best players. For young players it's always important to play at a world cup, even if it's just a U-20 WC. I am pretty sure the clubs can do without some for a few weeks.
18 November Kenya 2:0 Lesotho return leg in Lesotho on 9th, 10th or 11th of December http://www.michezoafrika.com/womens...tarlets-to-resume-camp-on-wednesday/3749.aspx Comoros have withdrawn from the competition, so Botswana advance to the next round
Norway won that friendly 1-0, so the Swiss seem competitive enough. Was a fairly even match, from reports. Norway were without 5 first-choice players (some of whom were in Northern Ireland getting embarrassed...)
11 December Lesotho 2:2 Kenya Kenya win the series 4:2 on aggregate and advance to the next round of qualifying.
The FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup 2012 won't take place in Uzbekistan. Apparently there are logistic and technical problems, which can't be solved in time. They don't have decided which country should replace Uzbekistan as the hosts, but Japan were a proposal. As a compensation Uzbekistan will host another youth tournament in the future or get some development aid.. Source (in German)
That's a shame, I was curious about Uzbekistan's team. If Japan is the new host, then I guess South Korea will play the tournament as the 3rd AFC team?
That'll most likely be the case, because unlike during the U-17 WWC the host berth is a completely separate berth.
Interesting question... couldn't Uzbekistan argue that they didn't get a chance to play the qualifiers (since they thought they'd be the hosts) so that they can't just be kicked out now, and therefore claim Japan's berth?
Whoops, I didn't think about Uzbekistan. Ehm, yeah... they'll probably keep their berth like China did in 2003.
The fair way to do it would have Uzbekistan (that didn't get a chanse to qualify) play the team that should hjave gotten the spot had the new host been the host all the time (South Korea if Japan hosts), then bpth have hjad a fair shot at the spot. But I guess that alternativ would be to costly.
News is slow coming out of Cuba re CONCACAF qualifiers. Anyone know the results, especially Puerto Rico vs. Guyana?
Guyana 1-0 Puerto Rico according to http://www.futbol24.com/match/2012/...ean-R2-Gr-F/Guyana-(W)-U20/vs/PuertoRico-W20/
I would have liked the Uzbekistani NT to retain their spot since it's pretty much the only time we could have seen players from this country, but it makes sense, sort of, since the 2003 WC couldn't take place in China due to a sanitary emergency while Uzbekistan has simply failed.
Brazil is winning it, womens soccer is taking of in brazil and just like every other category in the mens side where brazil dominates is time for brazil to dominate the female side.
Please note there are two separate threads for the U-17 and the U-20 WWC. I moved the corresponding posts to the correct thread(s) and deleted all unrelated posts.