Kicking things off with a 3-2 win over “Samba Legion” Brazil in their first group game, Italy went on to defeat fellow tournament favorites England and nemesis Colombia in quick succession to reach the quarterfinals.
The team was on fire, scoring 11 goals in five games, with six of those goals – more than half of the team’s total – coming from top prospect Cassaday.
[Cassaday/U-20 Italy striker: I’m only thinking about helping the team win every game, and I hope we can win the World Cup].
The only team to hand Italy a defeat this time around is Nigeria, who we beat today (Friday).
Nigeria broke down the Italian 안전놀이터 defense with strong forward pressure and quick counterattacks, which is something our players should take note of as they have been undefeated on the counterattack.
[Choi Seok-hyun/U-20 World Cup defender : We will recover quickly and now analyze and prepare for the Italy game quickly so that we can play a good game.
We’ve only faced Italy once before at the U-20 World Cup, in 1981 in Australia, where Korea won 4-1 with two goals from Choi Soon-ho.
After playing the round of 16 and quarterfinals at the same venue, our team will play the semifinals in La Plata, near Argentina’s capital Buenos Aires.
There will be more local support, and there are also more Argentine fans cheering for our players, thanks to our team’s so-called “vicarious revenge” against Nigeria, who beat the hosts, Argentina.
