June 12 – Uruguay beat Italy 1-0 on Sunday to win its first Under-20 World Cup title, breaking the sequence of four straight wins by European teams.
Luciano Rodríguez’s 86th-minute winner gave Uruguay a much deserved victory after dominating the entire match in front of 40,000 partisan fans at the Diego Maradona Stadium in La Plata.
“This is crazy, crazy, crazy and we deserve it,” a tearful Rodríguez said after the match. “We are living a dream.”
Uruguay was so engrossed in the occasion that the country’s football association suspended Sunday’s round of the national championship so fans could watch the final.
Neither Uruguay nor Italy were among the favourites when the U20 World Cup kicked off on May 20, but unlike Brazil, Argentina and England they faced less resistance from clubs about releasing players.
Uruguay lost the final of the tournament in 1997 and again 2013.
Earlier, debutant Israel beat South Korea 3-1 to secure third place in the same stadium.
Indonesia was initially scheduled to host the tournament, but the Muslim-majority country did not accept Israel’s participation and FIFA handed hosting rights to Argentina one month before kickoff.
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