FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup 2012

LOL, this should be the logo for the FIFA U13 world cup.

 

That's not bad. I initially thought it was a baseball though.:redface:

There's no difference between oops and redface?

 

apparently not: I had noticed it too. also some of the smilies hardly represent the related emotion...

 

Good: we have the full list of the U-20 WWC teams, now, or there are still any ongoing qualifiers somewhere in the world?

 

Man, we basically have the same teams as the 2010 U-20 WWC coming from many of the confederations (Africa, South America, Asia). The only one that looks much different is UEFA.

And only 4 Euro teams out of 16 qualifying teams?
Should be at least 5, like there always is.

One thing is for sure.
This will be one of the most "colorful" women's world cups (youth or senior level), with the color Red dominating still.


Blue teams
Argentina
Japan
Italy

White teams
USA (they usually seem to wear their white jerseys in major tournaments)
South Korea (they also seem to wear white a lot)
New Zealand (mostly wear white, but can also wear black)


Black teams
Germany (they wear black and white a lot)

Yellow teams
Brazil

Red teams
China
North Korea
Norway
Switzerland
Canada
Ghana

Green teams
Nigeria
Mexico

 

I'd make a pair corrections:
- South Korea is also normally red: the fact that they often wear white it's maybe because they often play some of the many other "red" teams, especially in their area (China, North Korea)?
- Although the second Germany's jersey is black, I can't remember any tournament where they weren't based in white. All matches that I remember lately (at least from the senior team) were in white, and I don't see how this should change for U-20.
-Technically Argentina should be a "bridge" between blue and white and shouldn't correctly put in either of them. ^__^
- Apart from that, I guess it's exact that red is dominating, although I confess that I am really not sure about Ghana's home jersey's colour.

 

Draw:

A - Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Switzerland
B - Brazil, Italy, Nigeria, South Korea
C - North Korea, Norway, Argentina, Canada
D - Ghana, United States, Germany, China

 

I don't want to look (unusually for me) overly optimistic, but it seems like a quite good draw for Japan, and a group that they shouldn't have problems dominating. Maybe Mexico is the best team in this group, in terms of young talents? I remember they had U-20 (or even U-17) players in their senior team, at WWC last year...

 

Well, quite aptly done.

 

Group D lol, WTF! Hilarious . Germany and USA , talk about groups of death. U.S. Kryptonite is the best way to describe any west African nations playing style, but they are now also increasingly dangerous at these age group events for every other nation too. China are also due another decent generation at some point..... .

Group A should see the hosts riding the wave of wider Japanese football success, and they have to be better than the weak sh*t we saw in Germany, right . Either way, the other teams in this group don't exactly scream danger, so Japan can't really complain if things don't go as planned in this years tournament.

Group B could be fun to watch. Brazil should have one of their best youth teams ever in Japan, but Nigeria, South Korea, and Italy, will make this a very even, but quality filled group.

Group C will have some talented players on show, but also l....ooks as inter...interes...int.......

 

Yeah your probably right about Germany and the U.S. going through, but I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss Ghana. Seriously, for all the hype that surrounds USA, and the expectation that surrounds Germany, both teams have found it difficult to deal with African football in the past few major tournaments. So if we see CAF send another group of tactically aware players to Japan, the order of when these games are played could make things very interesting.

What I'm hoping for though, is that this group draw forces Germany to field it's possible strongest team again, including the talents of national team members like Marozsan .

 

Prediction: USA will end up with four points from their three group matches, and whether they'll advance will be decided by goal difference.

 

I think your on to something with that prediction . Like you, I also believe the conditions are primed for a big scalp slip up in group D, with USA playing Ghana first and Germany last . At the same time though, like Lusankya suggests, football can be a very fickle beast too, and group D could end up being as exciting as a damp sponge .

 

Predictions:

Group A
Japan (7 points)
New Zealand (5 points)
Mexico (4 points)
Switzerland (0 points)

Group B
Brazil (9 points)
Italy (4 points)
South Korea (2 points)
Nigeria (1 point)

Group C
Canada (6 points) (wins group by goal differential)
Norway (6 points) (finishes 2nd in group and advances, based on goal differential)
North Korea (6 points) (does not advance, has worst goal differential of top 3 in group)
Argentina (0 points) (Canada's largest margin of win over Argentina, is the difference in group)

Group D
USA (7 points) (wins group by scoring the most goals. is tied with Germany in goal differential)
Germany (7 points)
Ghana (3 points)
China (0 points)


Teams that advance to Quarterfinal
Japan
New Zealand
Brazil
Italy
Canada
Norway
USA
Germany

 

I'm not optimistic about Canada's chances. This team is being neglected by the CSA as money goes to the Olympic team. Even the U-17s get more because they will be eligible for the U-20s in 2014. This year's U-20s were supposed to have a camp in May but it was cancelled, apparently because of lack of funds.

 

Potential lack of funding, and serious FA backed efforts in organisation, hasn't stopped other international women's programs from continuously improving. Even if this progress has to happen at a significantly slower rate than what we would really like to see, the poorly funded girls, and their often frustrated coaches, still find resourceful ways to move forward.

I mean think about it, highlighting issues of finance as a pre tournament excuse for eventual failure sounds pretty weak, when we still constantly see serious football nations like Brazil, sending their girls into tournaments, with the kind of prep that consistently damages hopes of genuine success. Left with the only option of sink or swim though, you don't hear about the Brazilian girls giving up.

If Canada has the talent, they'll show it. If their no good though, we'll all be able to assess that correctly too. The way the global dynamics of women's sports funding works, I seriously doubt Canada's current issues will be any worse than the other nations headed to Japan .

 

That looks like a stronger team than the side used to win the qualifying tournament?