…Nigeria faces Argentina in the R16 tomorrow
Yankees of America Beat New Zealand 4-0 to Sail into the Quarters on Sunday.
…Nigeria faces Argentina in the R16
The Yankees of America on Tuesday sailed gleefully into the Quarterfinals of the World U20 with a 4-0 smashing over New Zealand giving the Americans their 3rd clean sheet in the tournament.
America thus sailed into their 6th ever quarterfinal now to meet the winner of the Gambia versus Uruguay Round of 16 matches on Sunday in Santiago at 1830 hours.
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Owen Wolff opened scoring for USA in the 14th minute through Diego Luna assist; Luna again found Cade Cowel in the 61st minute from a defensive blunder for the second goal making Cowel to score in the last three games for USA against Fiji, Slovakia and now New Zealand.
Justin Che blasted home the 3rd goal from another defensive blunder in the 75th minute before unmarked substitute Rokas Pukstas collected a pass from Craig and slotted it into goal in the 82nd minute for goal number 4.
To get to play the Round of 16, New Zealand on 20th May piped Guatemala 1-0; played 2-2 draw with Uzbekistan on 23rd May and woefully lost to Argentina 0-5 on 26th May. Last two matches played before Argentina 2023 shows the team defeated Fiji Islands 3-0 on 21st February 2023 and also beat Ecuador 1-0 on 15th May 2023.
USA drew with Ecuador 1-1 on 20th May; spanked Fiji Island 3-0 and slushed Slovakia 2-0. In the last two games before Argentina 2023, USA on 25th March lost to England 2-4 and on 28th March USA and Serbia played a barren draw.
New Zealand and United States of America USA only met twice at this category. On 2nd June 2015 USA lashed New Zealand 4-0 and on 1st June 2017 in a world cup encounter, USA whipped New Zealand 6-0.
New Zealand with a nick name of Junior All Whites are from the Oceania football Confederation like Nigeria is from CAF and are making their 7th appearance at the World Cup. It is like New Zealand has a penchant “to collect” which is slang in Nigeria meaning to be well beaten as Australia whipped the team 6-0 at Ba in Fiji Island on the 8th of September 1990 and USA spanked them like you beat erring babies 6-0 at Incheon in South Korea 2017 world cup. Of the six previous appearances, their best achievements were three Round of 16 reach in 2015; 2017 and at the last completion in Poland in 2019. Now the team is there at the Round of 16 and has “collected” 4-0 and will have to leave Argentina within 48 hours according to FIFA rules.
The Yanks of America who Nigerians prefer to call Yankees had their biggest loss ever to Mexico at Bayamon in Florida on the 3rd of November 2018 which was a 7-0 drubbing. USA in their 17 appearances at the world cup never even qualified for the grand finale of any tournament. Their best was a 4th placing at Saudi Arabia 89 when Brazil beat the team 2-0 in the Losers’ final and Leonardo scored the second goal of that match that ended 2-1 AET. Nigeria’s Head Master, the chap that is known in global football to score most of his goals with the head, Mutiu Adepoju ‘killed’ USA in the semis with the brace 2-0 scoring 47th and 93rd minutes to relegate USA. USA looks like they are Quarterfinal specialists losing at that stage five times at Australia 1993; UAE 2003; Canada 2007; South Korea 2017 and Poland 2019.
At 2200 hours tonight Uzbekistan will meet Israel in the Round of 16.
Tomorrow Wednesday 31st May, Brazil will meet Tunisia at La Plata at 1830 hours. Italy will meet England same day, 31st May at La Plata at 2200 hours. Nigeria faces Argentina on Wednesday at 2200 hours at Juan. Columbia will meet Slovakia at Juan on 31st May at 1830 hours. Ecuador will meet South Korea at Santiago on 1st June at 1830 hours. Ecuador will slug it out with South Korea on Thursday at 2200 hours.
Perhaps you want to peep at the quarterfinal pairings. Uzb/Isr vs Bra/Tun at San Juan on Saturday at 1830 hours. Eng/Ita vs Col/Slo at San Juan on Saturday 3rd June at 2200 hours. Ecu/SKor vs Arg/Ngr on Sunday at 2200 hours.
Eniola Olatunji reporting for Patmos Media Line.
#FIFAU20Argentina2023.
#CAF
