The 2010 FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup is taking place right now in Germany and South Korea have made a great start beating Switzerland 4-0 in the first match.

Link to the FIFA website.

Remaining matches:
17 July 2010 v Ghana
21 July 2010 v USA

North Korea are there as well and have started well beating Brazil 1-0. They will be playing New Zealand in two hours time.

Yeah, I've been wondering whether I should make an effort to get to some of the games but they all seem a bit far away. Interesting venues they chose in the end. Not a single one of them has a women's Bundesliga team. You'd have thought they'd play some of the games in Potsdam in which case I would've been right there, but no. Dresden ought to be close enough but the rail line there is terrible and it takes 3-4 hours from my place. I think I'll save myself for the full thing next year.

Curiously, hosts Germany beat Costa Rica 4-2 in the opening game. I think I've seen that somewhere before.

It's also brutally hot at the moment in Germany, 35+ degrees. The New Zealand team that played in Suwon a few years back were basically the U-20 team and they wilted badly in the second half summer heat.

Yeah, one of the young Korean girls scored a hattrick in her first game. First time any korean has scored a hattrick at any form of world cup final.

She seems like a bit of a star and has scored 13 golas from 22 games for the FULL national team. She got her first goal when she was 16 years old.

There must be something about the Germans not having goals awarded against them at FIFA tournaments... Frank Lampard's effort was rather amusingly missed by the referee, and now a very similar French goal at the Womens U20 World Cup was missed. Looking at the stats on Wikipedia it would appear the referee in the match was English

North Korea have qualified for the quarter-finals where they will meet Germany, and they finished ahead of both Brazil and New Zealand who were eliminated at the group stage. South Korea are already through, and all that remains to be decided is if they'll finish first or second - if they avoid defeat to the USA tomorrow they'll top the group.

1-0 loss to the Yanks means South Korea will play Mexico (winner of Group C) in the quarterfinals on Sunday.

DPRK currently down 2-0 to Germany, and the Norks have had a woman sent off.

South Korea to face Mexico tomorrow.

Well done South Korea - they have made the semis where they will play the hosts, Germany.

Quarterfinals
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Sweden 0 – 2 Colombia
Germany 2 – 0 North Korea
United States 1 – 1 (a.e.t.) Nigeria [2-4 pen]
Mexico 1 - 3 South Korea


Group A
-------
1.Germany
2.Colombia
3.France
4.Costa Rica

Group B
-------
1.Sweden
2.North Korea
3.Brazil
4.New Zealand

Group C
-------
1.Mexico
2.Nigeria
3.Japan
4.England

Group D
-------
1.United States
2.South Korea
3.Ghana
4.Switzerland

The Germany game is today. I might try to watch it on TV.

Ouch. 5-1 Germany.

So I did watch it in the end, most of the first half and some of the second. They were robbed of a penalty at 2-0 down but otherwise it was men against boys (as they say). The Germans we're just bigger than the Koreans and the Koreans didn't have the speed or skill to make up for it. Some of the Koreans though were reasonably "robust". The number 8 for example would come off pretty well in a 50-50 with Ki Seung-yong. The Korean star Ji So-yun was subdued in the first half but provided moments of class in the second half. Everytime she threatened to get them going though the defence conspired to botch things up and give away another goal. The number 6 right back and the keeper in particular had poor games. The fifth German goal came from a penalty for something I don't think I've ever seen before. The Germans had a shot hit the crossbar and loop away whereupon one of the Korean defenders decided to catch it cleanly in her own area before it had gone out. Hardly a Suarez moment either as the ball was well clear of the goal and there was no one around her.

The fifth goal is around 1:35 on the video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mzc0zh3gqJg

Decent crowd of almost 20,000 at the game, including a fair number of good spirited Koreans with their young daughters. Hopefully not all of them will grow up to be ice skaters. Korea will play Colombia for the third place and Germany have Nigeria in the final.

Ji So-Yeon scores their eighth goal of the tournament as South Korea beat Colombia to lift bronze (!) at the Women's U-20 World Cup.

Oh, and defender Jeong Yeong-ah gave up a penalty in the semi-final against Germany, which was converted for the Krauts' fifth goal, when she held the ball in Korea's 18-yard box (thinking it had gone out of play, and thus was a goal kick). Spain's AS.com are calling it "the world's dumbest penalty".

Is that the best ever result by a South Korean team at a FIFA World Cup? Obviously there's Pohang, obviously, and the men got 4th place in 2002, but has a South Korean team ever made the final of one of these worldwide tournaments?