Although playing with only 10 players, Chile beat Egypt 2-1 to take an early lead in Group E in Antalya's Akdeniz University Stadium. Mahmoud Kahraba scored Egypt's only goal early in the 10th minute after which goals came from Nicolas Castillo and Christian Bravo in the 25th and 76th minute sealed Chile's victory. The Pharaohs lost terrific chances to at least draw but as Mahmoud Abdel-Moneim, aka Kahraba explained, “We were tense especially after the goal I opened the match with. We wanted to finish the match quickly and win so we were not concentrating well.” Commenting on the match, Rabie Yassin, Egypt's coach said, “We were better as a team but Chile won on the strength of its individual talents. We lost a lot of very good chances to win but we did our best.” Egypt meets England on Saturday. With England leading Iraq 2-1 deep into injury time of their opening match on Sunday in Group E, Three Lions fans were daring to dream their 16-year wait for a win in this tournament was about to come to an end. Then, up stepped Ali Adnan to fire home and earn the Iraqis their first draw in 11 matches in the competition, having picked up five wins and five defeats in their previous 10. This is Egypt's eighth appearance in the FIFA U-20 World Cup, the last three of which were in succession including the last competition in 2009 when they were hosts. Egypt secured a place in this year's finals by winning their fourth African youth championship, 10 years since they last took the title by overcoming Ghana on penalties. Their best FIFA U-20 World Cup performance was third place in 2001 when they beat Paraguay 1-0 after previously being defeated 2-0 by Ghana in the semi-final. The first African hat-trick in the history of the FIFA U-20 World Cup was scored in the 2011 edition by Egypt's Mohamed Ibrahim during his team's 4-0 win over Austria. In 1981 Egypt became the first team to beat the eventual world champions during the group stage when they beat then West Germany 2-1 in the second match of the first round. Some statistics from FIFA.com: 1-The FIFA U-20 World Cup Turkey 2013 will be the 19th edition since its inception in 1977. 2-A total of 83 associations have taken part in the FIFA U-20 World Cup to date and 1991 even saw the participation of a united Korean team. 3-For the 2013 competition there are three newcomers: Cuba, Greece and El Salvador 4-The FIFA U-20 World Cup again comes second only to the FIFA World Cup in terms of the volume of matches. Since the inaugural tournament in Tunisia, 732 matches have been hosted under the auspices of the FIFA U-20 World Cup. The FIFA U-20 World Cup UAE 2003 provided the backdrop for the 500th match when Spain met Uzbekistan in Sharjah on 4 December 2003. 5-Since its inception in 1977, the FIFA U-20 World Cup has made stops in every confederation: Africa (three times), Asia (five times), Oceania (twice in Australia – as from 2006 Australia is a member of AFC), North and Central America (twice), South America (three times) and Europe (four times including Turkey 2013). 6-From the first FIFA U-20 World Cup in 1977 until 1995, the final competition comprised 16 teams. However, to enhance the prestige of FIFA's major youth competition, the number of contenders was increased from 16 to 24 from 1997 (AFC 4, CAF 4, CONCACAF 4, CONMEBOL 4, UEFA 6, OFC 1, hosts 1). 7- In the first two tournaments, the games only lasted 40 minutes each way (extra time was twice 10 minutes). Since Australia 1981, matches have followed the traditional format of 45 minutes per half (with 15 minutes per half in extra time). 8- The AFC has twice been represented in a FIFA U-20 World Cup final, with both Qatar (1981 against West Germany) and Japan (1999 against Spain) suffering 4-0 defeats. 9- Brazil have contested the most FIFA U-20 World Cup matches (96), followed by Argentina (72) and Spain (67). The tournament began modestly in Tunisia in 1977, with the FIFA Technical Report bemoaning the paucity of spectators. But by the early 1990s the competition had grown into an event of enormous importance with worldwide media exposure. The inevitable teething problems experienced in Tunisia in 1977 were mostly solved at the second U-20 World Cup in Japan in 1979, one of the first major international football events in that country, which helped to trigger interest and enthusiasm for the sport there. The role of the FIFA U-20 World Cup as an “ambassador” to so-called “developing” football countries continued in 1981 when it went to Australia for the first time. In 1983, however, the event enjoyed its first major success in Mexico, a country steeped in football tradition where the final between Brazil and Argentina drew a capacity crowd of 105,000. The Soviet Union hosted the finals in 1985 while in 1987 it went to South America for the first time when Chile played host and in 1989 the state-of-the-art King Fahd Stadium on the outskirts of Riyadh was the spectacular setting for several matches. The current cup in Turkey is being held from 23 July to 13 August.
