2015 FIFA U-20 World Cup

[Giles Daldanus]

Is anyone following the FIFA U-20 World Cup?

The biggest surprise so far was probably exotic Fiji’s 3:0 win over Honduras (the Central Americans are a rising power in Concacaf).
The 1/16 finals are at the half point mark and some exciting matches still await us:

Austria – Uzbekistan
Germany – Nigeria
Portugal – New Zealand
Brazil – Uruguay

I think that the draw is set up nicely for a Brazil vs. Germany final. It will definitely be a must watch game - the young Brazilians will probably be itching for a chance to prove themselves against the Germans who inflicted the most traumatic defeat in history on their colleagues from the senior side.

The top scorers so far are from Hungary and Ukraine (however, both countries were eliminated in a dramatic fashion - the Ukrainians lost a penalty shoot-out to Senegal, while the Hungarians bowed out to Serbia after a last-minute own goal).

 

[ThePhilosopher]

I think that the draw is set up nicely for a Brazil vs. Germany final. It will definitely be a must watch game - the young Brazilians will probably be itching for a chance to prove themselves against the Germans who inflicted the most traumatic defeat in history on their colleagues from the senior side.

That'll be one great game to watch!Thanks for the info!:thumb:

 

[Giles Daldanus]

That'll be one great game to watch!Thanks for the info!:thumb:

You are very welcome! I was a bit too confident when it came to my predictions…unfortunately, Germany lost to Mali on penalty kicks (I tend to underestimate African teams at youth level – some of them like Senegal are well-organized and tactically astute in addition to being quite physical sides). However, Brazil (starting close to 8 whites) are doing well and will be facing Serbia (the surprise package of the tournament) in the final. It is good to see that the young Serbs will be vying for the title, as it will be a breath of fresh air given the dwindling fortunes of Balkan football – e.g. Serbia and Greece are so far struggling in the Euro 2016 qualifiers and are in real danger of not even reaching the playoffs. Albania is the only Balkan country that is actually punching above its weight.

 

[Porthos]

African teams will always have a tendency to do well on the Under-20 championships, because of well known reasons (Africans mature earlier than Whites and also because of rampant age-cheating in African teams). Later on the "great African talents" coming out of these World Cups (regularly praised by Pele) simply disappear into thin air. Therefore I would not take these types of U-20, U-17 and similar competitions too seriously.

 

[Matra2]

Not U20 but U21 Portugal's winning goal against England:

[video=youtube;1u0I2NFeAxo]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1u0I2NFeAxo[/video]

Jesse Linguard (#16) for England just going inside the box when the video begins. Maybe if he'd moved in early and towards the eventual goalscorer he still wouldn't have prevented the goal but we'll never know. What we do know though is that if you are oblivious to an unmarked player because you are standing ball watching then you will definitely not prevent a goal.

 

[frederic38]

African teams will always have a tendency to do well on the Under-20 championships, because of well known reasons (Africans mature earlier than Whites and also because of rampant age-cheating in African teams). Later on the "great African talents" coming out of these World Cups (regularly praised by Pele) simply disappear into thin air. Therefore I would not take these types of U-20, U-17 and similar competitions too seriously.

serbia won, but the best player of the tournament was adama traore:

if you look at the best players of each tournament, you will notice a huge over-representation of african players (pogba included):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIFA_U-20_World_Cup#Golden_Ball

don't let messi or aguero's presence fool you
2nd and 3rd best players after messi in 2005 were obi mikel and taiwo (funny to think taiwo is supposed to be around the same age as messi, while taiwo no longer plays or might play in bad leagues)

it is all for very well known reasons ofcourse

(by the way the catalan article says "the other adama traore" because this one plays in france, there is another one in spain who is another youth team overrated player)