By Eniola Olatunji reporting for Patmos Media Line
EIGHT TEAMS including defending champions North Korea are still in the race for the trophy of the 12th world U20 Women’s Football tournament.
These Saturday at 2pm South Korea will play Italy to pursue their ambition and at 5:30 pm the star match of the quarterfinals will be between Spain and Brazil.
On Sunday Falconets of Nigeria will face Columbia at 2pm while defending champions North Korea will size up Canada at 5:30pm.
A total 44 matches were played as at the end of the round of 16 games from which 166 goals were scored and 31,022 fans (705 fans per match on the average) watched the matches. Now that hosts Poland is out the attendance will surely drop.
The two highest scorers of 5 goals each, Annika Paz of Argentina and Choe Yon A of South Korea are still standing.
Four players scored 4 goals each namely Kalyee Hunter of Canada, Huang Junxin of China, Rachael Maltby of England and Marisa Garcia of Spain; eight players scored 3 goals each namely Winner Onajite David and Ramotalahi Kareem of Nigeria, Annabelle Chukwu of Canada, Romaine Gandonou of Benin Republic, Justine Bouquet of France, Zuzanna Grzywinska of Poland as well as ousted Kennedy and Alex Buck of USA.
Martyna Bartczale of Poland is the only player that scored 2 own goals against Mexico and Columbia. Annika Paz of Argentina against Poland, Asako Furuta of Japan against North Korea, Ellena Belli of Italy against China, Nair Pina of Portugal against Spain, Nam Seun-eun of South Korea against Ghana and Ester Maseke of Tanzania against Canada.
Already we are looking at the semifinal pairings. Skor/Ita vs Bra/Spa at 2pm on Wednesday and Ngr/Col vs Nkor/Can at 5:30pm that day.
FIFA has released tournament position
Poland is in 9th, Fra-10th, Arg-11th, USA-12th, Chi-13, Jap-14th, Eng-15th, Por-16th all eliminated in the round of 16. Ecu-17th, Gha-18, Mex-19th, Benin-20, CRC-21, Tan-22, Nzi-23 and NCL-24.
The tournament will miss Nigeria blood Princes Ademiluyi who plays for England and for Ipswich Town.FC. She was born at Gravesend in UK on the 14th July 2006, 1.73m tall with extreme passion for designing fashion (clothes) having her own brand.
She tried her best to derail the Nigerian dream winning the penalty against Nigeria which the Nigerian Keeper saved.
The Nigeria team went to condole with her after whipping the English team. Ademiluyi said “ko si wahala (no problem)” and spoke the nasal English to national pass King Charles who loves Nigerian Eba with Egusi soup with plenty soft ponmo.
#FIFA #2026U20WWORLDCUP
#AFC #CAF #CONCACAF
#CONMEBOL #EUFA #NFF.
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