One of the great things about soccer is the wide variety of competitions which facilitates an abundance of betting opportunities. One such event is the 2019 FIFA U-20 World Cup currently being contested in Poland. This is an event similar to it’s namesake featuring the best young soccer players from each country. England won the last U-20 World Cup held in 2017 but are not in this competition after failing to qualify in the 2018 UEFA European Under-19 Championship held in Finland. This makes England the sixth consecutive defending U-20 World Cup Champion to fail to qualify for the chance to defend their title.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The format of the U-20 World Cup is similar to many other international competitions. The 24 teams in attendance are seeded in 6 groups of four and begin play within their group. The top two teams from each group along with the four best third place finishers advance to the knockout rounds. The United States U-20 team is playing in Group D along with Ukraine, Nigeria and Qatar. Ukraine has already qualified for the second round by winning both of their two contests including a 2-1 win over the US in the opener. The US team bounced back to beat Nigeria 2-0 in their second contest. That leaves them tied for second place with 3 points while Qatar is 0-2 in the competition and in last place. The US will conclude group play against Qatar on Thursday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The US team now has a very good opportunity to advance to the round of 16 and they’ve got a made to order matchup to help facilitate that. They could get one of the top 4 third place spots with a draw but given the qualitative disparity between the sides that would likely be seen as a disappointment. It’s a strong possibility that Qatar is simply overmatched in a competition of this quality given the state of soccer’s development in the country. They were ripped 4-0 by Nigeria in the opening game and followed that up by dropping a 1-0 verdict to Ukraine. As these scorelines indicate, they’ve yet to score a goal in the tournament and that makes it tough to think they’ll break through for enough to deny the US a victory. Qatar’s U-20 has lost their last 5 games in all competitions scoring just 1 goal in the process. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tactically, this also sets up well for the US. There’s a good chance that Qatar will be overly aggressive at the start hoping to break their scoring drought. The US is very strong on the counter attack and should be able to exploit that much as Nigeria did in their opening contest against Qatar. That’s really Qatar’s best option–they simply don’t have the skill level at this point to try and beat the US by playing a more possession oriented game. Looking at the soccer betting odds<\/a>, the total is a bit high for our taste given that one of the teams involved simply hasn’t been scoring of late. Instead, we’ll back the US on the handicap line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n