And Korea DPR defeat Japan on penalties 5-4 in the 2016 FIFA U-17 Final. Kanekatsu (Japan) misses from the penalty spot! Wow! That's twice in 1 year that Korea DPR defeat Japan in a major final. 2015 AFC U-16 Women's Championship and the 2016 FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup. Poor Japan, despite all their beautiful passing, once they meet a team that plays a similar style, then tactics go out the window and it comes down to individual skill. Japan could've used a Deyna Castellanos.
At least we get the golden ball (lower prize I guess, but is something) for Fuka Nagano, well deserved I have to say.
Well, not really. Korea had lots of luck in this game, don't get me wrong Koreans are a very good team, but they didn't show really anything outstanding tonite. Other thing is that with different ref they would finsh match with 9 players. Japan were better team, but had no luck and then lose the cup by one individual error in penalties. Congrats to Koreans though, they withstood the pressure, stuck to their defensive game plan and prevailed at the end.
Golden Ball Fuka Nagano Silver Ball Sung Hyang Sim Bronze Ball Deyna Castellanos Golden Shoe Lorena Navarro Silver Shoe Ri Hae Yon Bronze Shoe Deyna Castellanos Golden Glove Noelia Ramos FIFA Fair Play Award Japan
On a side note. FIFA should be worried. It's 3rd big tournament in a row in women's football (2015WWC, Rio Olymp., and now U-17 Jordan) with growing number of teams showing tendency to play in style and according to rule: "at all cost not to lose a goal" instead of "play to score goals" - I just wonder if that raising tactical awarness in WoSo now, won't conjure in next few years something akin to men's Catenaccio from 60's.
Had to give Japan the old Movement Hex, after they knocked out the United Sanchez of America. It was only fitting to cast that spell on the young Nadeshiko teddy bears. http://www.thefreedictionary.com/hex And no one scored a single goal on Japan in this tournament, except for the People's Republic of Sanchez. Sanchez had two goals (and really, she had three) against Japan. But even if you only count the two that actually were called goals by the incompetent refereeing in this tournament, that is still an impressive feat from her feet. And where was Deyna when it mattered most in the medal rounds of this tournament? Where was she in the Semifinal? Where was she in her team's traditional 4th place match in this tournament? Japan will be back as a World Power on the senior level very soon. And Spain is about to BREAK OUT at the senior level.
The final: In the end an old non-official rule in football has been respected....you'll lose if you can't score while completely dominating your opponent....and trust me as a France fan I know it very very well.... There is little to add to what it has already been said, in a perfect world Japan would have won this by three or four to nil , but this is the real world and Koreans defended well with everything they could,...Japan built up plays was too predictable at times and their strikers mediocre. I'd like to insist on strikers because I think all of us (including me) have underestimated how a incredible collective (as Japan is) could hide average players on it......The difference between the winning team of two years ago and this one is clearly in the quality of their offense. Not a lot to say about North Korea because they clearly didn't deserve that title, doing nothing special but still they won it so congrats to them. The tournament: Women football is progressing worldwide, yes Asia still dominates U17 football but their domination is very positive because is purely tactical, champion N. Korea is not technically superior to many teams....Asian (well two countries to be honest) and Spain are producing girls able to read the game and to interpret its various situations very well at a tender age while the rest of top nations are still educating them on technique and physicality....is a different approach which is the best at this stage of a player development, it has been well proven, but did it will bring success?...Only future will tell because now the rest will catch them up tactically while the trio (Japan, Spain, N. Korea) will try to give physicality to their players....which is harder to do. The players: The first U17 WWC that I watched closely was in 2008, they were players plenty of potential but were very far from being considered "product completed"...in my opinion since last world cup we have an increasing numbers of players who are already (or almost) developped as senior material at a very young age mostly because federations are taking female footballers seriously, as I said Spanish and Japanese players already move on the pitch like veterans.....The problem is how much they could still progressing and taking them out of their "perfect system" will they still perform that well ?....Even here only future will tell but Japan past U17 teams had some extremely talented individuals who once stepped up the level of competition didn't fullfil their potential at all...Anyway these are my awards : Best player of the tournament: 1) Fuka Nagano (jap): Once Andrea Pirlo said "football is played with the head, your feet are just tools"...well this perfectly describe Fuka's game.....she always play with her brain first, personally I've never seen such a young girl with such a high football i.q. People compare her to Homare Sawa but she doesn't have the offensive game of her legendary compatriot, however, she's got the same charisma and may be even better technical abilities, but her football's intelligence is out of this world. 2) Deyna Castellanos (ven): La Reina, had a wonderful tournament but disappointed in her last two games, still Deyna is the most fearful player of her generation has she has it all....technical abilities, physicality, mentality ...she's destinated to be one of the most knwon female footballer in the years to come, talent and appearance allow her to be it....but most important to bring her country the higher possible... I'm cheering for her on that. 3) Nanami Kitamura (jpn): Defenders are often forgot in awards but Nanami deserves to be nominated. A full back who really impressed me all tournament long, pace, stamina, able to excel in both phase of the game, Kitamura has a very bright future ahead. My best eleven: Momoko Tanaka (jpn)- Ona Battle(esp), Natalia Ramos (esp), Sandra Luzardo (ven), Nanami Kitamura (jpn) -Fuka Nagano (jpn), Laia Aleixandri (esp), Hinata Miyazawa (jpn)- Deyna Castellanos (ven), Ri Hae-yon (nkr), Lorena Navarro (esp). Honorable mention: Alessia Russo (eng), Taylor Hinds (eng), Sung Hyang-sim (nkr), Julia Grosso (can), Veronica Herrera (ven), Jacqueline Ovalle (mex), Giulia Gwinn (ger), Noelia Ramos (esp), Claudia Pina (esp), Paula Fernandez (esp), Tanja Pawollek (ger), Reina Wakisaka (jpn), Riko Ueki (jpn), Ashley Sanchez (usa). ps: I just realize that Spain's Noelia and Natalia Ramos are actually twins....lol I never thought about it.
I agree about the fact that defenders need recognition too and that they are too often overlooked, not only by awards (with notable exceptions of Griedge Mbock-Bathy at U-17 WWC 2012 and Julie Johnston at U-20 WWC in the same year) but also by supporters in general and sometimes even by those posting here in particular. I don't completely agree with your particular choices here, though (nor with FIFA's Technical Study Group, for that matter), because I am not persuaded that Nanami Kitamura was our best defender. Her push on the left-side was vital for our offensive play, but her defending skills were not always at the same level, in my opinion (she and Nana Ono, for instance, were the DFs involved in that inexcusable mess that was 1st Sanchez goal in the match vs USA). I agree even less with your honorable mention of Reina Wakisaka, later in your post: she's a lovable person, always smiling and upbeat, but during the tournament she displayed many instances of sloppy defending, both when she was played as a Right Full-Back and as a Center-Back. Suffice to say that, out of 5 Yellow Card Japan earned in 6 games (one of the lower average YCs per game, along with Spain), 3 were for Wakisaka! And 2 of them for awkward and avoidable hand-balls! If you consider that Japan always plays not only for the title, but for Fair Play Award too (and we won that at least, despite Wakisaka), Reina Wakisaka was a liability. Even if you forget Fair Play Award, often she was sitting on a yellow for most of the match, putting her whole team in danger, for really no reason. And her overall defending left a lot to be desired also. If you want my opinion, the best of the bunch in a defense that conceded only 2 goals (yes, yes, WWC_Movement, 2 US goals) in the whole tournament was the other CB, Miyu Takahira. Not sure if you watched all of the games, but if you can somehow go back and rewatch any of them, please go checking and you'll realize she was the pillar of our defense. As strange as it seems, I checked on FIFA website and it looks like her name is written Batlle. Just don't ask me how on earth can it be spelled! Also, despite the fact that she had a quite bad final match, I would move Riko Ueki in the best 11: it's difficult to object to a player who was MVP in 3 of the 5 games she played. You could ask: who should I move from best 11 to make space for her? I'd say Lorena Navarro: despite the fact that she was top-scorer, most of her goals were quite easy and it looks to me that she's inferior to Ueki in quite all departments. Of course, if we were FIFA we just couldn't take Golden Boot of the tournament from best 11, it would sound unrespectful, but we are just a fans-website, and I guess we can! Ah, Debzy, Debzy! And I seldom saw more identical twins that those: if it wasn't for the fact that one of them is GK, it would be very difficult to tell one from the other on the pitch...
I have a couple of things to say about this comment: In the end an old non-official rule in football has been respected....you'll lose if you can't score while completely dominating your opponent....and trust me as a France fan I know it very very well.... -Well, Japan dominate the posession but nothing more. Like I said in Nadeshiko official thread, Japan only have 3 clear chances to score (I don't count the crossbar because is a long-range shot) and 2 of them were for oponent mistakes. It was not a siege by little nadeshiko. Not a lot to say about North Korea because they clearly didn't deserve that title, doing nothing special but still they won it so congrats to them. -One team can't win a tittle if they don't deserve it. Playing defense is legal and is harder and require more physical preparation than attack. Appart from the final, North Korea play some decent games in other rounds. They had beaten England if is not for the referee. They outplayed Brazil (result was a way shorter than Asians deserved) and beat Nigeria easy. It's true they suffered against Ghana winning at last minute, but they dominate the game including in clear chances. And in SF they beat Venezuela easily and neutralized one of the best players in the tournament. They really showed they can play "nice footbal" (like some people say). But they couldn't do that against best team of the tournament. One thing I appreciate the most in football (men or women) is the capacity of one team to adapt to every oponent they play in every game, and North Korea did that in perfections, hats off for their coach Sin Jong-Bok.
No you're wrong, you CAN win without deserving it as in football you can defend for 90 minutes and hope that soemhow you'll score without conceiding...which was exacty North Korea's game plan, they didn't came to play that final but to defend...They knew Japan better than anyone so knew they had a chance playign like that, probably their only chance..and they grab it, so congrats to them but every football lover will tell you they don't deserve it. And you're wrong again if you think defense is harder than attack....yes it required a diverse physical and mental preparation but those who played football know it way easier to settle and just wait for something to happen than actually build plays through schema, I mean you don't need to be that smart to understand why...... You'll taking risk if you attack, you're no risking if you defend...and it's exactly what North Korea wanted to do. That's what I said....her defending was good but her overlapping was vital to Japan's offense, she was the only fullback to do it regularly during tthe competition, what I really enjoyed about her is not only she was a attacking her flank like a modern lateral defender should, but most important delivering great assists to her teammates....that assist in the semi-final was pure quality not many fullbacks can do it even at a higher level. I choose Reina Wakisaka not only for her defending, she is too small not physical enough to be a CB at senior level, what I like about her is how she participated to Japan plays from the back and it seems to me like she was the soul of this team, but I'm fine with you not choosing her. For Ona I just checked and you are right is Batlle not Battle...my bad. To tell you the truth I wanted to put Ashley Sanchez or Giulia Gwinn because they clearly are destinated to superstardom but both USA and Germany disappointed and I was expecting more from these very talented girls.. I choose Navarro over Ueki not only because she scored more but also Lorena movement off the ball are way better than Riko's.....Ueki was easily controlled by Koreans because despite having technical abilites above average, she couldn't "escape" their marking as she doesn't know yet how to create space for her, while Navarro punished Venezuela making a simple for terrible efficient movement..the famous fox in the box...Venezuela CB's Herrera and Lazardo are excellent, that's why I nominated both, but they couldn't figure out where Lorena was as she let them be attracted by the ball while she freed herself from their marking. If Ueki did the same thing Japan could have won by three or four to nil...but she isn't able to do it yet.
Then, I am not a football lover, right? Ah, and those who rep me neither In every sport, the important is to win no matter what (always legal of course) And in football you win if you score more goals than your rival or, in this type of matches, if you don't conceide goals and then be more effective at 11m. I love Japan and their style of play the most (many people here could tell you) but football is not only attack, I prefer to win 1-0 than lose 3-4. I respect your opinion (even I think different) I only want you to respect mine and respect the champions (sounds contradictory you congrat them and then said they don't deserve it)
Well I guess you have your answer..... I respect your opinion and respect North Korea, that's why I congratulated them, but I don't agree on what you say and how they won it....is that simple.
@debzy Although I agree with you 'bout the feeling that Koreans, however good their defence was, really didn't put any real effort in this match to score a goal themselves - they looked mostly for an opponent error or for another otherwise lucky goal - but they're World champs now and congrats to them. About Lorena Navarro though, she scored 5 against Jordan - team 2 classes below any other in this tournament (perhaps Paraguay excluded) and then 3 goals vs. gassed Venezuela playing 3 defenders (Luzardo was moved to miedfield) from which only one was decent (Herrera). Her movement off the ball wasn't bad indeed...against medicore or seriously gassed oppostion, which is probably why she didn't featured against Germany nor Japan.
I'd add that, at the moment of 1st Navarro's goal, Herrera was momentarily out of the pitch injured (a hit on the elbow, if I remember correctly), so Venezuela was missing even its only decent DF. By the way, one of the other Venezuelan DF in that game, Hilary Vergara, was the epitome of mediocrity, in my opinion: she could only recur to systematic foul (had a YC and was somehow spared the second one), she used to sweep balls beyond the side-line under no pressure at all and she was unable to build anything on her wing. Really, without Luzardo and Herrera Venezuela DF looked quite hopeless.
But still her movement were better than Ueki's....but all this is just my opinion you guys can also do you best team of the tournament and honorable mention...I'll be happy to read it.
By the way, will FIFA do that also? I know that, for Senior WWC, an official best team of the tournament is published by FIFA: do they do that for U-17 WWC also?
The U-13 girly World Cup starts next year. The early favorite is Tonga, but watch out for Peru. Bahamas is the dark-horse to win it, if their goalkeeper forgets to wear gloves. Supposedly she is better without the gloves. Tonga is hosting this tournament, but they still need to build their new pitch here.
Goal of the tournament - voting My pick would be Castellanos goal against Canada. Cameroon Takounda's nice one too. I wonder though what Sanchez goal is doing in there - goal was gifted by clear misunderstanding between two Japanese defenders - and why Miyazawa's power shot from the same match that was much better, isn't on the list.