2025 FIFA U20 Championship: All Teams & Tournament News

No TV?

 

It now says FS1 on the link for Monday's match, FS2 for France on Thursday and FS2 for South Africa a week from Sunday.

 

https://open.substack.com/pub/500wp...eview-part-2-everybody?r=8yvi7&utm_medium=ios

I wrote a stupid amount about all the teams not in Group E

 

But what about the rest of the story?

 

It's a bit of a surprising result, because Spain won the UEFA qualifying competition to get here and returned some very talented players. Of course, Gessime Yassine might be the most talented player in the competition. He's going to make himself and USL Dunkerque a pretty penny sometime soon...

 

The passion some lesser teams show for their country seems to surprise the powers at times. CONCACAF teams at home especially in C America play all out most of the time. Teams have to match that and often can't making their better talent a wash.

 

Morocco is the African U20 runner up and beat the hosts, Egypt, in the semis. To me, it seems very close.

 

Panama snag a point from Ukraine and are still alive in the second toughest group. Toughest group would be the one with three confed champions and a finalist. Gotta love FIFA and their wild ranking schemes.

 

I'll sort of give them a break here as it must be nuts to seed at this age. Even if a team does good in qualifying will they get those same players released? Maybe it should just be random selection for groups once you qualify.

 

The Pots are solely based on prior U20 World Cup performance over the last 5 editions, weighted towards more recent results, with a bonus for confed champs. That means a European team that has only made 2 U20 World Cups is already going to be below New Zealand who have been at each edition, plus are Oceania champs. Spain and Morocco were both pretty clearly the best teams in their pots (3 and 4) and ended up in the same group.

I think Panama has some quality players. Because their domestic league isn't as strong they're not well known but the quality is actually solid if you look at guys getting first team minutes or making the jump to MLS Next Pro. South Korea is a tough test but they have what it takes to get past them.

 

Yep, one of the sneaky interesting things that gives you a better idea of why the FIFA Mens World Cup is simply harder than all youth tournaments is that UEFA Slots are balanced at all other levels compared to other confederations. It's only historically been in the Mens World Cup, that UEFA gets a pile of teams. To a lesser degree you can see it in the womens game too (which is why the US women's gold in '24 was not as impressive as if they had won a WC Trophy in '24, the competition is far less stiff, not just the game schedule and quanity of matches).

With so few UEFA teams, every cycle there are just fewer good teams, and more punching bags quite consistently at the youth level. I haven't bothered to look to see how rebalanced the WC now is, w/the changes that happened for '26 and beyond in the mens game.

 

Mexico giving Spain a game.

1-0 in the first half. Goal against the run of play by wonderboy Mora. Obed looking decent. Nothing really impressive from either side.

Spain could end up last in group if they don’t pull it together.

 

Mora with a second. 2-2 at 89 minutes.

 

Mexico's in a good spot. Morocco is already guaranteed first place and will rotate. Mexico gets the win and they are automatically second.

 

Gessime Yassine with another two assists vs Brazil. The first was a well weighted cross but a much better finish. The second was a very impressive individual play all around.

 

Good for them, superficially that looked like an absolutely murderous group. Morocco just, holy ----. How many of their guys are French Dual Nats playing for Morocco? I find it hard to explain the renaissance without a bit of that kind of thinking honestly, because the form is just ridiculously good. They looked outrageously good.

 

They have a pretty large number of European based players, but it seems fairly evenly divided between France, Belgium, and the Netherlands.

 

I have a dream. Of someday this very thing happening with our team and it inspiring tons of kids to want to be part of it. I can only hold my breath a minute or two.

 

One thing about Morocco is they are super aggressive as a program with dual nationals and their Olympic team we lost to was also filled with dual nationals.

 

Are the fields at this tournament exceptionally slick? I am seeing more slips and non-contact falls at this tournament that I ever remember seeing before. A LONG time ago i had a short assignment in Chile and I though the field I was near was exceptionally hard but I never had the opportunity to play on any field there but I am seeing so many people slip on startup or turn that I feel it must be the fields. It could also be that the wrong studs are being used but, if that is true, then it is virtually all teams and all players with the wrong studs.