Just wondering if anybody has been following the FIFA under 20 soccer tournament going on in Canada besides me? The FIFA U-20 is the biggest tournament next to the World Cup.
I was expecting a real barn burner in Toronto last night in the semi-final between Argentina and Chile but the match was a badly officiated 3-0 dud for Argentina.
Final on Sunday between defending champs Argentina and Czech Republic. Chile plays Austria for the bronze.
I’m hoping for the under dog Czechs to take the gold.
Haven’t really being following it, but it has been all over the news today after what happened last night with the Toronto Police and the Team from Chile. Its unfortunate that such a successful event had this happen.
I am routing for the Czechs as well.
Haven’t been able to watch as many games as I wanted to as I have been working camps the last two weeks, but the US had a very good showing. Adu even lived up to his hype. Against Brazil he had a sick move that led to a goal, made two Brazilians look like fools.
From what I saw and have read:
It was a fiasco. Almost to be expected with two South American teams that don’t like each other.
The German head ref was horrible, almost seemed to be on the Argentina payroll. Any time a Chile player came in contact with an Argentina player, an Argentina player seemed to take a dive and Chile would get a penalty. 9 cards against Chile, two of them reds which means two Chile players ejected fom the game. Only two yellows against Argentina. I watched the game on TV and the ref was pathetic.
The officiating was terrible, amateur in fact, but the Chile players pulled an over emotional hot head and reacted from the heart rather from the head and went a bit beserk, threatening the ref and linesmen at the end of the game. Chile fans were also running on the field threatening the Agentina players. That was cooled down but later, according to the papers, some of the Chile players jumped off the bus in the parking lot as it was exiting to mix it up with the spectators. Toronto cops broke it up, apperently even pepper spraying some of the Chile players. A bunch of the Chile players were arrested but later released. I wasn’t there, but this is a newspaper summary.
Now Chilean embassy/consulant is apologizing for the players behaviour, but is accusing the Toronto cops of brutality.
FIFA is doing an investigation.