Chapter 207: World Youth Championship

On June 21st, the 2013 Turkey World Youth Championship officially kicked off in Istanbul. The opening match was the favorites of France against Ghana.
In the end, France won Ghana 3:1 and easily won the first victory.
It is worth mentioning that the top two champions of this World Youth Championship, Spain and France, are assigned to the same group.
So their group is a well-deserved death group.
Of course, if Spain and France can join hands to qualify, then they will not meet in advance before the finals, which is a loss and a gain.
On June 23, England's E group also officially opened.
According to the analysis of the British media, England is undoubtedly the strongest in this group that England belongs to. This is a must.
Regardless of participating in any football match, the British media believe that England is the strongest.
In addition to England, Chile is considered the second-ranked team in strength. England may need to be careful not to be taken away by them.
The next Egypt and Iraq should be teams that are difficult to pose a threat to England, collectively referred to as the fish belly team.
In the first round of the group stage, the match between Chile and Egypt was played first. Although Egypt scored the first goal in more than ten minutes, Chile defeated the opponent 2:1 in the end. There was no upset.
Then at 8 pm local time in Turkey, the English youth team ushered in their first match against the Asian team Iraq.
In most people's minds, Iraq should be a country full of gunfire.
But when it comes to the level of football, Iraq's football is not bad. They won the Asian Cup.
Especially in football youth training, Iraq is developing very well. They have won the U19 Asian Cup five times and reached the U19 Asian Cup final last year. Unfortunately, they lost to South Korea in a penalty shootout.
The current Iraqi national youth team was formed with the U19 Iraqi team last year.
At the Akdenis University Stadium in Antalya, the game between England and Iraq officially started.
For England, Southgate arranged the British 442 formation.
The goalkeeper is Sam Johnstone from Manchester United's youth training.
On the defensive line, Everton's Stones and Sporting Lisbon's Eric Dale partnered as the central defender, West Ham United's Daniel Potts was the left back and Liverpool's Flanagan was the right back.
The four midfielders are Ross Barkley of Everton, James Wardprous of Southampton, Adam Ritchie of Middlesbrough, Connaught Cody of Liverpool.
On the front line, it is naturally Jackie Lee and Harry Kane partner.
From the perspective of the lineup alone, England is indeed better than Iraq. If you compare the worth, Lee Chenglong alone is higher than the other team combined.
At the beginning of the game, England, which has a psychological advantage, began to aggressively attack, and it soon had an effect.
In the 16th minute, Li Chenglong dribbled the ball and continuously broke through the opposing defenders Fayez and Rubat, volleyed in the penalty area and helped the team open the record.
Immediately after the 27th minute, Liverpool's Connaught Cody scored a long shot to help the team expand the score.
Judging from this score, Iraq is indeed weak and it is difficult to resist the offensive of England.
However, for the rest of the first half, the England team failed to expand the score. First, the opponent strengthened the defense, and second, England took the lead with two goals, which was somewhat slack.
At the beginning of the second half, the game was a little calm, and there were not many opportunities created by both sides.
But England is not worried because they are leading by two goals.
But 70 minutes later, Iraq began to change into offensive players and started a desperate counterattack.
Then under the opponent's counterattack, England could not stand it.
In the 77th minute, Iraq got a corner kick. Stones made a mistake, allowing the opposing defender Fayez to run out of the open and scored with an easy header.
At this time Southgate was also a little nervous and began to ask the team to strengthen defense.
Then he defended for more than ten minutes. In the 89th minute, in a corner kick defense, West Ham United's Potts also made a mistake and directly pushed the ball to the opponent's feet, allowing the opponent to easily stab the goal.
In this way, England was in a good situation with two goals ahead, but because of two mistakes in the back defense, they lost two goals in a row and were tied by Iraq 2:2.
Li Chenglong can be considered to have realized that the defense of this youth team is simply a big hole. The various players are like forcibly pulled together to piece together. You can't see the various defenses.
No wonder Southgate has to come by himself if he is forced to do so. If this team can't attack anymore, it may be a big problem even to qualify.
At this moment, Li Chenglong suddenly felt a little bit pitted.
He is the biggest star in this World Youth Championship. If he leads the team and can't qualify for the group stage, I don't know how many people will ridicule him.
And even if the team is qualified, if the final result is not satisfactory, I am afraid that someone will criticize him.
Those famous places in England who have nothing to do when they are full every day, they like to do things that pick the bones of the eggs.
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The schedule of the World Youth Championship is relatively tight. Three days after the first round of the group match, it will be the second round.
On June 26, the game between England and Chile arrived at the Akdennis University Stadium.
The Akdenis University Stadium, www.uukanshu.com is really just the stadium of a local university in Antalya, with a capacity of only 7,000 people.
Youth competitions like the World Youth Championship have limited attention and not many fans. Especially in the group stage, except for the host, the competitions of other teams are bustling. It is not bad to have thousands of fans.
So it is not a problem at all to arrange in such a small stadium.
In this Chile U20, their core players are Angelo Enriquez and Brian Lavillo. The former is a small, well-known talented player in Chile. He joined the Premier League Manchester United last year, but was immediately loaned out. The performance proves that the latter is a player from La Liga Sevilla.
In this game, England's defense is slightly better, but only slightly better.
Facing the Chilean team, which is mainly defensive and counterattack, the team's offense could not start in the first half, but the defense was stabilized for more than half an hour. Unfortunately, in the 39th minute, Barkley was intercepted in midfield and Stone Sis came up to give points and let the opponent get the lead.
At the beginning of the second half, Li Chenglong dominated the game.
In the 62nd minute, Li Chenglong passed the opponent's defender Larenas on the wing, the favorite of South Americans, and then sent a precise cross.
Kane jumped high in the middle of the header to help the team equalize.
Then Chile became more determined to defend. After all, they had already won the first game. Now they are satisfied as long as they get a draw against England.
But in the 79th minute, Lee Chenglong created a well-positioned free kick in the frontcourt, and then took the penalty personally, drawing a standard banana curve to help the team reverse the score.
In this way, Li Chenglong helped England beat Chile 2:1 with one pass and one shot, and finally won the first victory of the World Youth Championship.