Yeah, like ARG bringing in Mascherano as u20 coach (again), despite failing in qualifiers. Today, we saw the ISR coach turning his back while his team kicked a penalty against BRA. No wonder his team missed 2 consecutive penalty kicks. Happy-go-lucky coaching right there. I doubt a *drastic* youth coaching evolution has occurred.
Israel's success is no fluke. They qualified by reaching the final of last summer's U19 EURO while the seniors are getting closer to qualifying for the EURO and WC.
@r0adrunner , no one said ISR advancing to u20 WC semifinals is a fluke. I argue that youth coaching has not evolved drastically, like @Gibraldo extrapolated.
Israel senior team will play in Nations League A for the next edition, unsure if someome from this u20 team already plays on the senior one
Oscar Gloukh does... a versatile playmaker who isnt even in the squad because of other duties, i guess. he was theirnbest when they were runners-up in the U19 Champs.
Congrats to Israel. They are the team of destiny. Congrats to Italy. They just took advantage of some poor defending and made Colombia pay. Those kids are going to be good. Cannot believe most of them are not playing minutes at any major clubs and are mostly on youth squads or minor squads.
Come on USA. This is your moment. You can beat this Uruguay squad. Nigeria- Korea is going to be fun. I think Nigeria should win and historically has had a great youth system but Korea has a great youth program too. This could be back-to-back semis for them.
Ironically as dominant as Nigeria have been in U-17s, they've never actually won the U-20s World Cup which kind of surprised me. Ghana is the only African winner of this tournament.
Yes, high time Nigeria transferred their success at U17 level to U20. Of course they did win a certain U23 competition in 1996 in Atlanta! Incidentally, this is Italy's third consecutive semifinal at the U20WC.
Congrats to Korea going to back-to-back Semis. They gutted out a victory in ET. Congrats to Uruguay. To me they were the best team in South America during the Sudamericano Qualifiers. They just happened to get a brain fart against Brasil at the wrong time. They are deservingly the lone representatives of South America this time around. Especially missing a bunch of key players and still finding a way to the Semis.
And once you make stupid mistakes they know how to close down shop and keep a score line for the most part.
Good drive by URU. ISR cannot afford make mistakes now. Horrendous state of the pitch by the way. FIFA better put some attention to that before the Final match.
Uruguay have really been on top here. However, if there's one thing we've learned in this tournament that is never write off Israel....
As a Brazilian, I agree with you that in this tournament, Israel has been a team to take seriously. That said, the Uruguayans have pulled it off. I bet an Indonesian or two are laughing at the moment, but really, the laugh is at them for an attitude which does not have any business with a FIFA tournament. The ramifications against Indonesia for the way and the reason they lost the right to host this tournament won't end with the final match.