Young Football Player

On June 21, the 2013 World Youth Championship in Turkey officially started in Istanbul. The opening match was between France, the favorite to win the championship, and Ghana.

In the end, France won Ghana 3:1 and easily won their first victory.

It is worth mentioning that Spain and France, the top two favorites to win the World Youth Championship, were assigned to the same group.

So their group is a well-deserved group of death.

Of course, if Spain and France can qualify together, then they will not meet in advance before the final, which is a loss and a gain.

On June 23, England's Group E also officially started.

According to the analysis of the British media, England is undoubtedly the strongest in this group, which is a must.

Regardless of participating in any football event, the British media believes that England is the strongest.

In addition to England, the Chilean team is the second-ranked team. England may need to be careful not to be taken away by them for the first place in the group.

The following Egypt and Iraq should be teams that are difficult to pose a threat to England, collectively referred to as the big teams.

In the first round of the group stage, the match between Chile and Egypt was played first. Although Egypt scored the first goal in the opening ten minutes, it was Chile who defeated the opponent 2:1 in the end, without any upset.

Then at 8 pm local time in Turkey, the England youth team ushered in their first game against the Asian team Iraq.

In the impression of most people, Iraq should be a country full of gunfire.

But when it comes to the level of football, Iraqi football is not bad. They have won the Asian Cup.

Especially in terms of football youth training, Iraq has developed very well. They have won the U19 Asian Cup five times and reached the final of the U19 Asian Cup last year. Unfortunately, they lost to the South Korean team in a penalty shootout.

The current Iraqi national youth team is based on last year's U19 Iraq team.

At the Akdenis University Stadium in Antalya, the game between England and Iraq officially kicked off.

For England, Southgate arranged a British 442 formation.

The goalkeeper is Sam Johnstone from Manchester United's academy.

At the back, Everton's Stones and Sporting Lisbon's Eric Dier partnered at centre-back, with West Ham's Daniel Potts at left-back and Liverpool's Flanagan at right-back.

The midfield four are Ross Barkley of Everton, James Ward-Prowse of Southampton, Adam Ritchie of Middlesbrough and Connor Coady of Liverpool.

On the front line, it is naturally Jackie Chan and Harry Kane partnering.

Simply looking at the lineup, England is indeed stronger than Iraq. If you compare the value, Lee Chenglong alone is higher than the entire team of the opponent.

At the beginning of the game, England, which has a psychological advantage, began to attack aggressively, and it soon had an effect.

In the 16th minute, Jackie Lee dribbled the ball past opposing defenders Fayed and Rubat, and volleyed in the penalty area to help the team open the scoring.

Immediately after the 27th minute, Liverpool's Connor Cody scored with a long shot to help the team expand the score.

Judging from this score, Iraq is indeed weak and it is difficult to resist England's offensive.

However, in the rest of the first half, the England team failed to expand the score. First, the opponent strengthened their defense, and second, England led by two goals, and they were a little slack.

At the beginning of the second half, the game was a bit calm for a while, and there were not many opportunities created by both sides.

But England is not worried because they are leading by two goals.

But after 70 minutes, Iraq began to replace offensive players and launched a desperate counterattack.

Then under the opponent's counterattack, England couldn't stand it at all.

In the 77th minute, Iraq got a corner kick. Stones made a mistake, allowing defender Fayed to run out of space and easily scored with a header.

At this time, Southgate also became a little nervous and began to ask the whole team to strengthen their defense.

Then defended for more than ten minutes. In the 89th minute, in another 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 shoot and score.

In this way, England led by two goals, but lost two goals in a row due to two defensive errors, and was tied 2:2 by Iraq.

Li Chenglong has realized that the defense of this youth team is simply a big hole. The various players seem to be pulled together by force, and the various defensive coordination is not visible at all.

No wonder Southgate has to come by himself even if he pulls hard. If this team can't attack well, I'm afraid even qualifying for the group will be a big problem.

At this moment, Li Chenglong suddenly felt a little tricked.

He is the biggest star in this World Youth Championship. If he leads the team and fails to qualify for the group stage, he will be ridiculed by many people.

And even if the group qualify, if the final result is not satisfactory, some people will probably criticize him.

Those celebrities in England who are full and have nothing to do every day like to do some picky things.

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The schedule of the World Youth Championship is relatively tight. Three days after the first round of the group stage, it will be the second round of the group stage.

On June 26th, still at the Akdenis University Stadium, the match between England and Chile came.

This Akdenis University Stadium is really just a stadium of a local university in Antalya, with a capacity of only 7,000 people.

For a youth event like the World Youth Championship, the attention is limited and there are not many fans watching the game. Especially in the group stage, except for the host, the games of other teams are bustling. It is not bad to have a few thousand fans.

So it is not a problem to arrange it in such a small stadium.

This Chilean U20 team, their core players are Angelo Enriquez and Brian Ravello, the former is a well-known talented Chilean player who joined Manchester United in the Premier League last year, but was immediately loaned out. The performance proves himself, and the latter is a player from La Liga Sevilla.

In this game, England's defense was slightly better, but only slightly better.

Facing the Chilean team, which mainly focused on defensive counterattacks, the team's offense could not start the situation in the first half, but the defense was stable for more than half an hour. Unfortunately, in the 39th minute, Barkley's midfielder was intercepted. Stone Si came up to send points, allowing the opponent to take the lead.

At the beginning of the second half, Jackie Lee dominated the game.

In the 62nd minute, Lee Chenglong passed the opponent's defender Lareinas on a bicycle on the sidewalk, and then sent a precise cross.

Kane jumped high in the middle with a header to help the team equalize the score.

Next, Chile became more determined to defend. After all, they had already won the first game. Now they are satisfied with a draw against England.

But in the 79th minute, Li Chenglong created a well-positioned free kick in the frontcourt, and then took the penalty himself, pulling out a standard banana arc to help the team reverse the score.

In this way, Jackie Lee helped England beat Chile 2:1 with one pass and one shot, and finally won the first victory in the World Youth Championship.