U-20 World Cup 2019

[Incandenza]

Is there a post yet?

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

I see England and venezuela aren't in it. I suppose there's no compelling reason that the two finalists the last time out should be in it again. It is after all supposed to be an entirely different group of players. No brazil or spain either.

[Southport Zeb]

England are the sixth consecutive champions that have failed to qualify for the subsequent tournament. The last champions to return were Argentina who won consecutive tournaments in 2005 and 2007 (before failing to qualify for 2009).

[Cal Alamein]

Norway 12, Honduras 0? I saw the score and expected to see about 4 Hondurans sent off, but there were only two and the second one was in the 90th minute.

https://www.fifa.com/u20worldcup/mat...tch/400010584/

Erling Haland (old man played for Leeds) w/ 9 goals.

[Incandenza]

USA barely managed to get past Qatar, 1-0. Not many people happy with how Tab Ramos has been picking his teams.

[Cal Alamein]

Damn. Fantastique 3-2 win from USA U-20 team.

USA scored first, but eventually the French maintained control and took a deserved 2-1 lead. The underdogs did not lay down and banged in a couple for the upset.

So much fun to watch the skill and team cohesion from the USA youngsters. Ecuador is up next.

[Incandenza]

Wow! I wasn't even bothering to check the scores this morning.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eA3s...feature=onebox

[Incandenza]

QFs:

Colombia vs Ukraine
Italy vs. Mali
USA vs Ecuador
South Korea vs Senegal

SFs
Colombia/Ukraine vs Italy/Mali
USA/Ecuador vs South Korea/Senegal

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Bet you're looking at that and dreaming of glory Inca. It's like the Korea side of the knockouts in 2002.

[Incandenza]

Ecuador will be tough, and I would expect Senegal to win, like the US they have made the QFs three times running and I assume they will be tough again. But it's an incredibly open field.

[Jah Womble]

Norway 12, Honduras 0? I saw the score and expected to see about 4 Hondurans sent off, but there were only two and the second one was in the 90th minute.

https://www.fifa.com/u20worldcup/mat...tch/400010584/

Erling Haland (old man played for Leeds) w/ 9 goals.

A triple hat-trick - is that a record for a FIFA finals tournament?

Bizarrely, it wasn't enough to qualify them for the knockouts. (Reminiscent of Hungary's ten against El Salvador in the 1982 World Cup that still saw them eliminated at the group stage.)

[Southport Zeb]

Most goals in a single FIFA Finals game
Men
Senior - 5 - Oleg Salenko (Russia v Cameroon 1994)
U20 - 9 - Erling Håland (Norway v Honduras 2019)
U17 - 4 - David (Spain v New Zealand 1997), Carlos Hidalgo ( Colombia v Finland 2003), Souleymane Coulibaly (Côte d'Ivoire v Denmark 2011), Kelechi Iheanacho (Nigeria v Mexico 2013)

Women
Senior - 5 - Michelle Akers (USA v Chinese Taipei 1991)
U20 - 5 - Kim Un-Hwa (North Korea v Angola 2012)
U17 - 5 - Chinwendu Ihezuo (Nigeria v Azerbaijan 2012), Lorena Navaro (Spain v Jordan 2016)

[Jah Womble]

Cheers for that.

Salenko's goalscoring feats in the US were also insufficient to secure qualification to the knockouts. (Do I see a theme developing here?)

[gintsr]

NZ vs Colombia shoot-out was scandalous: after NZ keeper put away third COL penalty, ref thought it's too much and decided that it should be repeated - keeper too quick off the line (yes, he was off the line but it was so minimal, minimum when you're jumping to the side and not absolutely paralel to the line). To make ir worse when was NZ decisive miss COL keeper was much more off the line.

[delicatemoth]

I wonder if that's why a lot of refs prefer not to see things such as encroachment, shoving at corners and other common non-violent offences - penalising one instance opens you up to charges of inconsistency if you thereafter miss any other instances.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

I wonder if that's why a lot of refs prefer not to see things such as encroachment, shoving at corners and other common non-violent offences - penalising one instance opens you up to charges of inconsistency if you thereafter miss any other instances.

yes. Very much so. particularly since there is no fury like the fury of fans that feel like their team has been punished out of line with other teams.

[Sam]

Before the Argentina v Mali shootout, the referee was shown quite definitely telling both goalkeepers that close attention would be being paid to where their feet were. The commentators on Argentine TV seemed to be under the impression that VAR would be used for it as well (although they often talk out of their arses, so that doesn't necessarily mean it really is being used).

Mali's kicks in the shootout were all absolutely top drawer, incidentally. Argentina's goalkeeper only got close to one of them, and even with that one he didn't have a hope of keeping it out.