2019 FIFA U20 World Cup: Non-U.S. team and tournament news

Well, South Africa ties Portugal, takes them out of the tournament, allowing Panama in. Next up for them: Ukraine. Might that be winnable for them?

 

I’m making the argument that europe doesn’t deserve MORE spots that the 14-15 it already gets. Whassisface said something about England being better than Tahiti which is neither here nor there because England made both tournaments so clearly isn’t one of the teams that would benefit from an extra spot.

Instead among the teams heading home this tournament 2 are from Europe 2 from concacaf, 1 from Asia, and one from OFC. Thus if anyone has a case for too few spots it’d be Africa and South America this time.

Hope that clarifies this basic point of logic for folks.

 

Round of 16

Colombia
New Zealand

Ukraine
Panama

Italy
Poland

Argentina
Mali

France
USA

Uruguay
Ecuador

Japan
South Korea

Senegal
Nigeria

 

All that makes sense, and I sure as hell don't like seeing a 12-0 scoreline, but the games you are referring to hadn't yet been played. If Norway were able to score 12 against Honduras, why shouldn't they think it were possible for Qatar, Saudi Arabia or South Africa to put up double digits as well? And this is not the case of some footballing monolith (e.g., Germany) playing a minnow (e.g., San Marino). The senior Honduras National team has made it to 3 World Cups.

 

Africa can probably make that case across all of the youth levels.

CAF has 56 members
CONCACAF has 41 members

I would argue that the "average" CAF team is significantly better than the "average" CONCACAF team. Mostly because after you get past the 10th CONCACAF team, we're trash. The 13th ranked CONCACAF team is Nicaragua. The 13th ranked CAF team is Algeria. So......................

But every championships is different. At the 2017 U20 World Cup, 2 CAF nations made the Round of 16. 3 CONCACAF nations did, with 2 making the quarterfinals.

Honduras has a very poor record in recent U20 World Cups. Which is very strange based on the quality of the rest of their program. In 2015 they lost to Fiji 3-0. FIJI!!!

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollaxe

 

Japan v. South Korea?

c'mon man. might as well play Senegal vs. Nigeria or Urugay v. Ecuador....oh. wait. Boring. No one wants to see these nations play each other.

 

No, those games hadn't been played, but no, those results are only possible mathematically, in theory. Only Tahiti (and Honduras) had showed themselves capable of being beaten down in this tournament. Otherwise the outlier margin is four (Nigeria 4-0 Qatar), with a couple of three-spots (Japan 3-0 Mexico) and Argentina 5-2 South Africa). All the other games were more competitive - no 10's, 11's or 12's.

Qatar 12-0 USA [Actual result Qatar 0-1 USA]
Saudia Arabia 10-0 Panama [Saudi Arabia 1-2 Panama]
South Africa 11-0 Portugal [South Africa 1-1 Portugal]

None of those bolded scores is within the realm of genuine possibility.

I'm letting Norway go all out to start, six, eight, maybe 10 goals - but not 12, with the last two coming in the final 2-3 minutes. At some point enough is enough, and in my mind that point was clearly passed.

 

Honduras lost 12-0 to Norway. Norway. And you're blaming Norway. Get perspective. Either the match was tampered or Honduras just didn't care.

 

Yes, it's an ax on the end of a pole - I think they joke was a pun. A decent one at that.

 

Honduras' not caring is a different question, although a late studs-up, red-carded tackle suggests at least one of their players did care.

But I'm not talking about Honduras; I'm talking about Norway.

 

I can imagine that being down 3-0 15 minutes in is pretty deflating. No doubt they just gave up

 

An individual player's petulance isn't evidence of the team's caring. And what did Norway owe Honduras? Beyond a fair effort?

 

Never Mind the Pollaxe

(many threads of this thread have gotten really weird - I only hope to contribute my own particular flavor.)

 

Which, I would suggest, means they deserve what they got.

 

Can't believe that anyone could blame Norway for something like "scoring too many goals". Ridiculous.

Keep in mind, the USA's lone comparable win in the region was a 13-0 win over the US Virgin Islands, which is literally the USA beating up on... the USA. Otherwise, even the smallest Caribbean minnows defended with enough skill so as to lose by 4-6 goals at the most.

If you give up, professional players will eventually score on you. Them's the breaks. Norway was under no obligation to not attack at all, and when you have 70 percent possession and are inside your opponent's half for most of the game, the end result is that you're going to get chances to score.

This isn't like football, where you can call running plays to run out the clock. If you don't want goals scored on you, hold onto the ball and defend better. The onus is on Honduras to play, not on Norway to not play. And furthermore, this is Honduras, a thuggish team hardly deserving of sympathy, that chose to lose without effort.

 

There is no way you can blame a team for winning by too much in this competition. These are big boys playing for high stakes. It is Honduras' responsibility to keep up. Norway and other country should score 50 if they can. Silly to think that a team should be worried about running up the score at this level, especially in a competition where goal differential is a tie breaker.

 

Portugal’s U20 coach should probably be brushing off his resume after this one. He pulled in more talent than the U19 European champion side had, even though he won that. To score only two goals total and draw (or not just score 2 goals) a must win game against a South Africa team missing their best player is a huge embarrassment.

They should have been a favorite to win the tournament but instead got beat out by Panama.

 

Norway-Honduras investigated for possible match-fixing https://t.co/8EyrXyhyzc

— Norway Today (@norwaytodaynews) May 31, 2019

https://t.co/zmDShHvfzK

— Diario Diez (@DiarioDiezHn) May 31, 2019

 

I think what they will find out in their investigations is that Honduras is a very bad team that played 3 games in less than a week.

 

Maybe, but I watched Honduran players just standing and watching as Mr. Haaland came by. Standing and watching is beyond just being tired. This will be interesting.

 

They just quit on their manager who does not have a clue.
Does not mean it was rigged. Sometimes Kids just give up.

 

So do pros. Sometimes they just walk around during key moments of the match.

 

Oh, there's no question they gave up. However, it's still worth checking out the possibility of match fixing with such an extreme result. Also, as bad as the result was, it's not like Honduras has eleven players who can't perform basic soccer skills or can't run or jump. I contrast that with the 31-0 demolition of American Samoa by Australia in 2001 in WCQ. When you watch that you can see that the Samoan players are devoid of soccer skills and even basic athleticism. A decent pub team would have put up a better fight, even if they got stomped on. The Hondurans clearly gave up, but the extreme scoreline and the way the players did nothing to defend does raise questions. We shall see...