USA beats New Zealand 4-0 to set up a quarterfinal against The Gambia or Uruguay. Meanwhile Israel get another late goal to set up a potential quarterfinal against Brazil or interestingly, Tunisia... should Tunisia win, I wonder if they play the quarterfinal? Anyway, it's turning out to be quite a debut for Israel and a good run for the US who are still yet to concede a goal...
I think participating in a youth WC can only help a player's development. Obviously its quite limited how much one can improve from 3 or 4 matches. But just the experience of being put in this bubble where you are essentially at a football camp far away from home and other distractions has to be helpful to some degree. I agree that the U20 serves as a decent tool to identify talent (these 2 things are not mutually exclusive). Though I think U17 is a much better tool in that sense, as U20 is already a bit late to even need to be identified if you are any good at all. I'm not a big fan of having a bunch of Pacific islands states and Caribbean and other small nations to this tournament, as it somewhat defeats this purpose of youth tournaments. If they really need to include the likes of Guatemala, Fiji, Dom Republic maybe expand to 32 teams (which I think is rumored to happen soon?).
Someone was editing the knockout bracket on Wikipedia (the English entry for this tournament). Already penned as quarterfinalists are Gambia (who plays Uruguay on June 1), Brazil (who at this moment is beating Tunisia 2-0), Colombia (who is beating Slovakia 4-0 at the moment), England (who plays Italy later today, May 31), South Korea (who plays Ecuador tomorrow, June 1) and Nigeria (who faces hosts Argentina later today, May 31). Perhaps this person confused this Wiki page with one of those many "predict the bracket" which appear online when these FIFA tournaments take place. That said, if that wasn't the case, I do wonder if the quarterfinals will match this lineup.
Someone found a future sports almanac book and used it to bet like in Back to the Future. Where's Biff?
Harsh hand ball on Tunisia's first goal. Even if it had a contact it didn't change the play or gave an unfair advantage to the Tunisian player. The goal should have counted. Second half was a glorifies defense practice for Brazil; Brazil only committed players on promising attacks very savvy players with professional experience. Still hard to figure out the full potential of this Brazilian side. A bit disorganized while defending in transition.
Congrats to Nigeria. They were the better team and found a way to eliminate the home team. Congrats to Italy getting their revenge on England. Colombia - Italy could be the game of the tournament if both teams play to their full potential.
Now that Argentina is out, can we expect our 'hermanos' to start cheering for Brazil?!! Hell will freeze over before Argentina is willing to see Brazil win anything played in Argentina (or any place else lol) Great public on their game vs Nigeria. The game was closer that the score suggest. I guess they will cheer for Italy now. Any way, so interesting matches to come.
In the starkest possible terms: the hosts had an easy group. The moment they had a serious opponent in front of them, they couldn't get the job done. The local fans are free to support whomever they wish now that their team has been eliminated; I'm sure they'll chant "ole" every time Israeli players pass the ball to each other on Saturday the same way they have done in Brazil's other games.
I read the article in the Brazillian forum about how Brazil organized their youth selection and the coach they picked for the u20. He has experience two top italians teams and working in the Brazilian League. I also think he coached some youth teams. In contrast, Argentina just hired someone like Mascherno because he wants to coach. Two tournaments he hadn't the faintest idea about tactics; the Nigerian coach used basic tactical knowledge against him and Mascherano is in the media during his interviews talking a lot of hot air. I have no idea why AFA continues to be dense, when we already had a blue print of how to run things with Pekerman. Had a better qualified coach been used for the U20, both those goals from Nigeria would have been void. The attacking game strategy was a failure too. There was too many crosses or attempts to belt the ball into the net. Clearly there was no strategy there, because he let the players do whatever they wanted. Terrible coach.
Brazil, Nigeria, and Italy from the same group all in the quarter finals. Has this ever happened before in any tournament ? The way FIFA seeds these youth tournaments is ridiculous. Argentinas group was a joke.
What a stupid thing to say about Guatemala. It really shows your ignorance about what happened in qualifying. No one "included" Guatemala in this tournament, they rightfully earned their spot on the field by eliminating much bigger traditional countries in Concacaf like Mexico and Canada. Fiji and the Dominican Republic had a much easier qualifying path. Las estupideces que tiene que leer uno en este foro.
You know what I mean. Such teams inevitably get "included" among the final 24 teams when so many spots are allocated for CONCACAF and OFC. And, yes, the qualifying format in CONCACAF is poor. Its never going to do a good job of sending the best 4 teams from the region, and it showed.
Argentine fans have been great so far, obviously they will cheer any team playing Brazil; Args have a strong connection to Italy, I would imagine that Italy will be the 'local' team now that Argentina is no longer in it.
But were would those spots be allocate to? C'bol already have plenty of spots. UEFA and Africa then? you could decrease the cup to 3 teams per confederation, but the qualifying format wouldn't change not everybody can do C'bol qualifying format.
Once again, Guatemala defeated Mexico, arguably the best team in Concacaf at the Youth level, and then Canada who tend to be strong. They also defeated Panama, a country that has qualified to a total of 8 Youth World Cups. It's a freaking youth tournament, are you advocating for 2 WC slots for Concacaf and maybe 6 WC slots for CONMEBOL so Argentina could always qualify? These are two year World Cups for a reason. So everyone has the chance to participate without waiting as long as four years. ¿Qué parte de «Mundial» no entendés donde todos tienen el derecho participar?
The "likes" of Guatemala defeated Mexico? I don't folllow CONCACAF's qualifying for the FIFA U-20 World Cup, so I didn't know that. Indeed, no one "included" Guatemala; Guatemala qualified fairly by following the rules and earnings its spot. Again, while I don't follow CONCACAF qualifying closely, if as was peculiarly claimed here CONCACAF's qualifying format is poor and the best 4 teams from there will never get sent, why did Team USA reach the tournament? I mean, a look at the 2022 qualifying tournament shows the U.S. finished the group stage with 2 wins and 1 draw, with 15 goals scored and 2 allowed. Then in the knockout bracket, the U.S. won 4 straight with 16 goals scored and none allowed. In the current World Cup, the U.S. won 3 of 3 in the group stage with 6 goal scored and none allowed; it then defeated New Zealand 4-0. 10 goals scored, none allowed, 4 wins in 4 matches. That's a better win-loss record and a better defense than the numbers currently produced by five-time U-20 World Cup champion Brazil, who is a contender for the title. And yet CONCACAF will never send its 4 best to the tournament? I agree with you. Some of the curious things one reads on this forum....
Yes, I would say reallocate to CAF, UEFA and AFC if keeping the overall size at 24 teams. But I would prefer simply expanding to 32 teams and allocating most of those extra 8 spots to those 3 regions. Nobody is arguing otherwise. I realize its a "World" cup but the 6 regions aren't all the same size. Not even close in fact. For e.g. in the CONCACAF region there are only 12 countries that aren't really tiny (i.e. Jamaica -sized or smaller). Whereas in Africa there are 40 countries that are at least twice the size of Jamaica (with football being the #1 sport in probably all of them). By over-representing a smaller region you are actually making the tournament less global, not more. Also making it easy for Fiji to qualify and super difficult for Australia to do the same goes against your own logic of "everyone should have a chance to qualify". A country with Fiji's talent level that is located in AFC (Bhutan, Nepal?) has no chance to qualify.
Yes, I agree with this. I don't understand this "developmental tournament" argument. No one is going to find the next Mohamed Salah or Erling Haaland on the Fiji U17 or U20 team. Some countries will just never be good at football because they either have too small a population or don't give a shit about the sport or both (Fiji itself is mainly a rugby country).
Yes, this is a point I was also making earlier in the thread. CONCACAF is proportionally better represented than CAF and UEFA under the current system which is ridiculous.
Indeed, potential needs to be factored into this allocation formula a bit better. i.e. Potential of a country in developing talent in the future. I think some people may not be aware just how small many of these Caribbean islands are. You can drive from one end of Saint Martin/Sint Maarten island to the other in 30 minutes. And it only takes that long because of the mountains in the middle, forcing the main roads to go around the island's perimeter. And by "main road" I mean one lane in each direction with pedestrians, dogs and chickens crossing at random. And this miniscule island accounts for 2 of the 48 CONCACAF members.
Can we talk about teams actually playing in the tournament now or is this thread going to meander into so many different topics?
Uruguay and Gambia each have a red card that Uruguay red was weird, the guy got a red for the elbow I suppose but at the same team, the african guy spent the whole time trying to give him a german suplex
Gambia’s red was questionable as well. They’ve been the much better side, despite going down a man so early on.