- …Bows To New Zealand 1-2 in 2nd Group Match.
The Junior Pharaohs of Egypt are out of the 24th edition of the U20 World Male football tournament ongoing in Chile as the team went down 1-2 to New Zealand on Tuesday in group A making her the first African country among the four to move near the Exit door.
Egypt raised high hopes for the night scoring in the 5th minute through Ahmed Khaled who got a pass from an El-Hadad assist but New Zealand quickly equalized in the 13th minute through Brooke-Smith from a Ukich pass and three minutes later, Xuan Loke of Phoenix FC got a pass from C, J. K Phoenix of Auckland FC to show the Egyptians the exit door.
Egypt played better football but lacked clinical finishing having 26-10 shots at goal with a 5-5 shots on target; had 62-38% ball possession stringing a fine 441-289 passes and an awesome 14- corner kicks refusing to take advantage of their performances. Their 3rd group match is a mere formality.
Egypt rocked the bottom of group A with no point a goal scored and 4 conceded; Japan tops with 6 points, 4 goals scored and a clean slate so far (meaning no goal conceded); New Zealand is 2nd having 3 points with 3 goals scored and 3 goals conceded while Hosts Chile is 3rd with 3 points scoring 2 goals and conceding 3.
The Junior Pharaohs lost their first match to Japan 0-2 when Chile beat New Zealand 2-1. Egypt will play their last group match against hosts Chile on Friday at midnight while New Xealand will face Japan at the same time.
Another African country, Morocco will be stepping out against Italy at midnight today Wednesday; Morocco stunned Spain 2-0 in first match and will meet Brazil next tonight at midnight.. South Africa that lost 1-2 to France will tackle New Caledonia at midnight tomorrow and finally Nigeria that bowed 0-1 to Norway will meet Saudi Arabia on Thursday at midnight. All second group matches.
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The two top leaders of the group automatically goes into the round of 16 matches of the Knockout stages while the 3rd placed team will compare with other 3rd place losers for the better team to join the Round of 16 stages.
Reigning Champions, Uruguay is missing in Chile as the country was knocked out at the qualifying stages of the South American confederation making the nation the 8th defending champions that failed to defend their status at the U20 world cup.
The 24th edition of the world U20 male football tournament runs from Sunday 2th September to 17th October with 24 nations from six football confederations contesting in four cities of Chile.
Eniola Olatunji reporting for Patmos Media Line.
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