By Aderonke Ojo
…Final is on Sunday at Midnight.
The Atlas Lions of Morocco on Wednesday night at Brander, Chile raised Africa’s ambition to win the world U20 Men’s football title for the second time after Ghana did it when she defeated the Little Blues of France 5-4 on penalty kicks.
Beyuku lost the 2nd kick while N’Guessan threw away the finale ticket with an imperfect kick for France but Harmony who took the 4th kick for Morocco lost his kick. Son of legendary Zidane and Michel scored their kicks for France. This was the first match of the tournament to end in penalty shootouts.
The night started with a penalty award taken by Yassir Zabiri that hit the wood work and bounced in a ricochet on France’s goalkeeper Lissandra Olmata for an own goal. Incidentally that was the 3rd own goal that Morocco earned in this tournament. First from Shin Min-ha of South Korea and second was from Joshua Wynder of USA.
That brings us to five own goals so far in this tournament as Wnder also scored an own goal in the match against South Africa and that of Jayden Smith of New Zealand that actually opened the flood gates of Own Goal in the match against Japan.
Lucas Michel of AS Monaco scored his fourth goal of the tournament with an equalizer he grabbed in the 59th minute. He had scored the lone goal to rested Japan; made a brace in the New Caledonia 6-0 slaughter.
As at the close of the first semifinal, Neiser Villareal of Colombia was hot in pursuit of the Golden Boot for highest Scorer sharing 5 goals each with ousted Benjamin Cremaschi of USA. Four goals heroes are Lucas Michel of France and Alejo Sarco of Argentina.
Strasburg Midfielder in France Jersey, Rabby Nzingoula bagged the 2nd yellow in the 107th minute which translated to a Red Card meaning that’s the end of the tournament for him. Morocco strategizing for the penalty shootout pulled out her goalkeeper Gomis for El-Mesbahi in the 120+5 minutes just before the kicks.
Morocco awaits the winner of the Argentina versus Colombia 2nd semifinal just starting whileFrance will battle for the Bronze medal.
France dazed South Africa 2-1; bowed to USA 0-3 and hammered debutantes New Caledonia 6-0 at the group games and then piped the Lover boys from Tokyo Japan 1-0 in the Round of 16 games. France capped the journey to the semifinals beating Norway 2-1.
The Atlas Lions humbled world football power, Spain to signal they are a formidable force from Africa; beat another super power nation, the Samba Boys of Brazil 2-1 and surprisingly lost to Mexico 0-1 at the group stages before locking down High Tech Red Devils of South Korea 2-1 in the Round of 16 games. She then floored the Yankees of USA 3-1 in the quarterfinal. Something to note is that both teams had two clean states (not conceding a single goal) in two matches.
Both teams met three times with France winning twice and obtaining a draw; she scored 11 of the 20 goals in the three encounters. On 28th May 2012 France drew 2-2 with Morocco in a local tournament; and in the two friendly matches played, France beat Morocco 4-3 on 11th October 2024 and in the return match of 14th October 2024 France again won 5-4.
The Little Blues of France is in their 9th appearances winning the championship at Turkey 2013 when the French boys won the title via penalty shootouts after a goalless draw at full time but also had a podium finish placing 4th at the Colombia 2011 Games when she lost the Bronze to Mexico 1-3 in the 3rd Place match.
Morocco is at the Mundial for the 3rd time and finished 4th at Netherlands 2005 when they lost the Bronze to Brazil 1-2 after bowing to Nigeria in the semifinal.
Argentina is playing Colombia in the 2nd semifinal at Pradanos about now.
Third place match is on Saturday at 8pm at Pradanos on Saturday while the final is on Sunday also at Chile’s biggest city of Pradanos in Santiago at midnight Nigerian time.