Colombia U-20 – Japan U-20

The favourite will not be able to pick up his second win of the tournament

The favourites in Group C will meet in one of the most interesting games of the second matchday of the Youth World Cup in Argentina. Japan played their opening game against Senegal and were considered the underdogs in the encounter. However, in the 15th minute Matsuki shot from 25 meters into the corner of the net and put the Asian national team in front. By and large, that moment was the only scoring chance for the Japanese team, and they prioritized defending their goal the entire second half. In the second half, Senegal had at least five good opportunities to score, but failed to score once. Colombia played their first-round match against Europe's Israel. The chances of the Israeli national team were not particularly high, but they were awarded a penalty in the second half and scored the first goal of the game in the 57th minute. Israel had an excellent opportunity to increase their lead, but instead of executing a one-on-one, the European national team brought on a penalty inside their own goal, which was converted by Cortes. Even at 1-1 Israel could have pulled out a win, but an improved performance by Colombia, who scored the deciding goal in the 90th minute, made it 2-1. Bookmakers described the South American team as the favourite, offering odds of 1.93. This is the eleventh time Japan have qualified for the World Cup, having qualified as semi-finalists for the Asian Cup. Their best result was in the 1999 final, in which they lost to Spain. Before the start of the Argentinian World Cup, their last meeting was in March, when they lost the AFC semi-final. The Japanese came into the match against Iraq as favourites, but were forced to pull away in the process and crashed out in a penalty shoot-out. Colombia qualified for the World Cup at the end of the CONMEBOL domestic championship, where they finished third. In eight matches in that tournament, Colombia lost only to Uruguay, who finished second to the Brazilians. In friendlies before the World Cup, Colombia lost to Wales and drew with Nigeria. Japan does not look like a weaker team, so we will bet on an Asian side to be undefeated.