#under-20

New Post has been published on http://goodnewsjamaica.com/sports/young-reggae-girlz-win-cfu-championships/

Young Reggae Girlz win CFU Championships

Jamaica’s young Reggae Girlz clobbered host nation St. Kitts & Nevis 9-0, in the CFU Women’s Under-20 soccer final at the Warner Park Sports Complex on Sunday to win the championships.

In the curtain raiser, Haiti joined Jamaica in the CONCACAF Women’s U-20 Championship for next year after dispatching the Dominican Republic 4-1.

The last time Jamaica’s U-20 women’s team won the CFU title was in 2013. At the CONCACAF Championship, the Jamaicans will play in Group ‘B’ alongside Mexico, the United States and Nicaragua.

Benji Joya scores the winning goal for Chicago against DC United in a pre-season match

  Joya opened his scoring account for the Fire in spectacular fashion, as the Chicago jump to a 4-0 pre-season record.

The former under-20 US national team captain enter the match at the 60-minute. Fifteen minutes later Joya would receive a pass from another former under-20 US player Victor Pineda; the former Santos Laguna midfielder controlled the pass and curled the ball to the top right hand corner of the net.

At the end of the video Joya explains his thoughts on the goal. The Fire will be back at Chicago until Feb. 15, when they head to Tucson, AZ to compete in the preseason tournament, the Desert Diamond Cup.

Enjoy the video, which was provided by the Chicago Fire.

  France in their first every Under-20 World Cup final appearance, and they would take home the World Cup title.

Uruguay played their best game of the entire World Cup in the final. Uruguay is known for pure defense, but somehow in this match they outshot the team that had scored most goals in the tournament.

Uruguay took 22-shots-in the match and got 14-of those-shots on target. The French would control the possession of the ball in the match by 20-percenet. However, Uruguay would take 10-more-shots then France, and Uruguay would get nine more shots on target then France did in the match.

However, with Uruguay playing their best game by far, and with France playing their worst game ever in the World Cup. Somehow Uruguay was not winning the game.

It was not a miracle, but instead the outstanding performance from French young star goalkeeper Alphonse Areola. He made eight saves in this match and single handedly got France into the penalty shoot outs.

In the penalties Areola would forever mark his name in the history books of France. Areola would not make one save in the penalties, but instead he would make two saves out of three penalty shots Uruguay took.

Yes the French players would go four out of four in their penalties, but if it was not for Areola world class performance between the posts in this match. Uruguay would have been crowned champions in regulation time (Highlights to the penalty shoot-outs can be seen on the video above).

  Penalties  

France

1.    Paul Pogba (Made)

2.    Jordan Veretout (Made)

3.    Axel Ngando (Made)

4.    Dimitri Foulquier (Made)

Uruguay

1.    Emiliano Velazquez (Miss)

2.    Giorgian De Arrascate (Miss)

3.    Lucas Olaza (Made)

  France has won the World Cup and this team will be one of the teams to keep an eye for the future. These talented players for France will for sure emerge into the senior level and make France into a powerhouse team for many years to come (Here is the link to see the French players celebrating their first Under-20 World Cup title http://youtu.be/vdjc2cqHrzE).

As for Uruguay, this was a bitter way to lose the final of the World Cup. However, like France the Uruguay Senior National team will benefit from these great and hungry players from the Under-20 level.  

  Well that is a wrap for the 2013 Under-20 World Cup in Turkey, and we now have a winner and it is France. However, there will be an official wrap up coming on Monday, July 15, 2013, stay tune for that.  

  Ghana might have not won the World Cup, but they finished the Under-20 World Cup in third place.

Ghana came into this match as favorites to beat Iraq. Everyone knew that the Ghana offense would be too much for Iraq to handle.

Ghana offense did not disappoint in this match as they were able to drop three goals on Iraq defense today. However, Iraq would not quit as they were able to produce 17-shots-in the match.

Iraq also was able to get 10-shots-on target which made Ghana goalkeeper Richard Ofori have a very busy night. However, in the end Ghana’s clinical world class finishes would be the main reason why they would win the game.

The first goal of the match was a brilliant powerful header from Joseph Attamah. He would rise above the Iraqi defense and head the ball into the back of the net in the 35-minute.

Ghana second goal of the match would come from Ghana leading goal scorer Ebenezer Assifuah. The young dangerous Ghana forward would get the ball at the right hand side of the penalty box.

Assifuah would make a quick hesitation step over the ball and jump to his right.  Assifuah would wind up and send the ball low to the bottom left hand corner of the net.

Ghana would take a two goal lead right before halftime. However, the Black Stars would not score again until the last few minutes of the match.

Frank Acheampong would receive a great break way pass, a ball that would slip him pass two defenders. Acheampong would bury the ball into the roof of the net to seal the victory of the third place match in the process (Highlights to this match can be seen on the video above).

  Goals:  

GHA: Joseph Attamah (35-minute)

GHA: Ebenezer Assifuah (45-minute)

GHA: Frank Acheampong (78-minute)

  Ghana has won the third place match with a very one sided final score line 3-0 victory over Iraq. With this result Ghana has proved that Group A was truly the “Group of Death”.

Three out of the four teams from this group made the second round, and three out of the eight teams were in the quarterfinals. If it was not for a bit of bad luck Spain would have been in the semifinals as well and possibly the final.

To come out of that group with teams like; Spain, France, Ghana and the United States was an accomplishment to be proud of. None of the four teams finished with zero points. In fact on the final day of the group stages every team was still very much alive to make the next round.

However, in the end Ghana, Spain and France would make it out of the Group. Now the winner of the Under-20 World Cup is from Group A and the third place team of the World Cup is also from Group A.

Not to mention Ghana was the team that made the next round as one of the best third place teams in the group stages. Ghana did pretty well for a team that finished in third place of their group.

As for Iraq, this magical inspirational Under-20 World Cup performance from them will always be remembered. However, the greater positive from all this is that Iraq has something to build on their soccer federation on and to begin to restore hope from a country that has only known misery for the last few years.

  Stay tune for more news and highlights from the 2013 Under-20 World Cup in Turkey

  Uruguay ends the Cinderella tail of Iraq in this World Cup with a dramatic win in the penalties.

Uruguay came into this match as favorites and they played as favorites. Iraq was having a hard time in this match to contain the Uruguay attack.

Uruguay took 22-shots-in this match and got 12-of-their shots on target. Iraq goalkeeper Mohammed Hammed made six saves in this match to keep Uruguay at bay for most of the game.

However, regardless of how well they were playing Iraq would take the lead. In the first half Ali Adnan Al Tameemi would score the goal of the World Cup in the 34-minute. Tameemi would take a free kick from outside the penalty box in the right hand side.

Tameemi for not even a second would think of crossing the ball into the penalty box. Instead Tameemi would shot the ball with tremendous power and curve on the ball. He would make the ball curve into top right hand corner of the net.

Uruguayan goalkeeper Guillermo De Amores would be in disbelief as Iraq celebrated the goal. However, after that goal Uruguay would put their head down and work hard for that trying goal.

With three minutes left in the match it seemed that Iraq was going to hang on to the 1-0 lead and go to the final. However, at the 87-minute-of the match Gonzalo Bueno would score the goal that would save Uruguay lives and would destroy the Iraqis dreams.

Bueno would score a volley to tie the game. The match would go into extra time and neither team could finish their chances. The major reason for the goalless extra time halves was because of the keepers.

Both goalkeepers would combine for 12-saves in the match. With the defenses and goalies playing so well the game would have to go into the dreadful penalties to find a winner.

Eight kickers deep the penalties would have to go to finally find a winner. Both teams had already missed on their very first penalties of the shoot-outs.

The Captain for Uruguay Gaston Silva would step up to take the penalty. Silva with such a cool calm walk to the ball would send the ball to the left hand corner of the net with no reaction to his face as the ball entered the net. A cool calm customer the Captain was.

However, the match would end when midfielder Salif Salaman Al Mohammedawi would blast the ball over the net and send Uruguay into the final of the World Cup (Highlights to this match can be seen on the video above).

  Goals:

IRQ: Ali Adnan Al Tameemi (34-minute)

URU: Gonzalo Bueno (Assisted by Felipe Avenatti, 87-minute)

  Penalties

Iraq

1.    Ali Faez Atiyah (Miss)

2.    Mohammed Jabbar (Made)

3.    Ihab Kadhim Khaifawi (Made)

4.    Humam Tarreq Faraj (Made)

5.    Ali Adnan Al Tameemi (Made)

6.    Mohannad Abdulraheem Karrar (Made)

7.    Mahdi Kamil Shitagh (Made)

8.    Salif Salaman Al Mohammedawi (Miss)

Uruguay

1.    Gianni Rodríguez (Miss)

2.    Leonardo País (Made)

3.    Felipe Avenatti (Made)

4.    Gonzalo Bueno (Made)

5.    Nicolás López (Made)

6.    Diego Rolan (Made)

7.    José María Giménez (Made)

8.    Gastón Silva (Made)

  Uruguay will now be facing the mighty French in the final of the Under-20 World Cup on Saturday, July 13, 2013. The match will be played at Istanbul, Turkey. Uruguay will be underdogs to the France on Saturday. Uruguay will need to play an almost perfect played game on Saturday to defeat such a dangerous French team on Saturday.

France at the moment is extremely high on confidence at the moment. The French has defeated the other team who had recently become favorites to win the World Cup, Ghana.

It took a spectacular second half performance from the French goalkeeper Alphonse Areda to deny the dangerous Black Stars from advancing to the final. France in the end would still come through because of their dangerous accurate finishing.

However, the only major plus Uruguay has going from them, is that France rock in the defense Samuel Umtiti will miss the final since he received a red card against Ghana today. Uruguay will need to exploit that as much as possible against France on Saturday if they want to increase their small chances of winning the World Cup.  

As for Iraq, their magical run falls short of one game. However, they still have the third place match to look forwards. Iraq will be coming out with everything in the tank to get a victory in that match.

However, Iraq will be facing Ghana in the third place match. Ghana is opponent that Iraq has yet to face and I do believe Ghana will finish in third place of the World Cup at the end of Saturday.

Fourth place is something Iraq can be proud off. No one expected this team to reach this far, but they did.

One thing is for sure the Iraq Senior National team will be on the rise in Asia very soon. Their teams is about to get a huge reinforcements of young and hungry talented players.

  Stay tune for more news and highlights from the 2013 Under-20 World Cup in Turkey