After creating a ‘quarterfinal myth’, can Kim Eun-Joong make history at the FIFA U20 World Cup 2023?
Kim’s U20 team defeated Nigeria 1-0 in extra time to reach the last four for the third time in history, joining 1983 and 2019. South Korea, the first Asian nation to reach two consecutive quarterfinals, will knock out Italy.
For South Korea to erase the bitter memories of four years ago, they must move beyond this quarterfinal. The Koreans reached the final for the first time in their history at the 2019 tournament in Poland, but were upset by Ukraine 1-3. Lee Kang-in opened the scoring with a penalty kick in the fifth minute of the first half, but the Koreans conceded three goals in quick succession to fall short.
Italy, on the other hand, has never made it past the quarterfinals. They were knocked out by England in South Korea in 2017 and Ukraine in Poland in 2019 먹튀검증. Coincidentally, the team that defeated Italy in the quarterfinals of both tournaments went on to win the title. That’s one more reason why Kim Eun-Joong-ho needs to beat Italy.
South Korea would be the first Asian team to win the U20 World Cup. Ghana, the 2009 winners, are the only other team from a third continent outside of Europe and South America to have won the tournament. Italy has won the adult World Cup four times, but has been unsuccessful in the age-group competition.
The U20s have scored a lot of headers in this tournament. In all, they scored eight goals in five games, starting with the group stage, and half of them – four – were headers. Three of them were goals, and one was an equalizer that gave us a valuable point in the group stage.
If the game against Italy is decided by a header again, it will be the ‘junior’ to the 2002 Korea-Japan World Cup golden goal for the A team. It will be interesting to see who takes over the role of Lee Young-pyo, who delivered the cross that set up the goal.
In the other quarterfinal “matchup” besides Korea-Italy, Israel, who beat the United States 2-0 in the semifinals after a four-game unbeaten streak, will be fighting for its first-ever trip to the final against Uruguay.
Israel needs just two more wins to become the fourth team to win the U20 World Cup in its first appearance. The former Soviet Union in 1977, Argentina in 1979 and West Germany in 1981 went on to win the trophy in their first appearance.