With a goal by Luciano Rodríguez five minutes from the end, Uruguay beat Italy 1-0 and became champion of the Under 20 World Cup. The match was played at the Estadio Único Diego Armando Maradona, in the city of La Plata. In this way, the South Americans got their first title in the history of this category.
The playing field took center stage due to its irregular terrain, mainly in the central circle and surroundings. Both nations bet on direct attacks and passed crosses on set pieces. At 22 minutes, Anderson Duarte had the chance to open the scoring with a header but Sebastiano Desplanches flew in a great way to cover the opportunity and send the ball to the corner.
La Celeste pressed Italy with all their offensive power in their goal and took complete ownership of the game during the first half. The inaccuracies and the good performance of the central European duo were to blame for the South American team failing to open the scoring. The match stopped after 42 minutes when the two main players, Duarte and Desplanches, crossed paths after an aerial ball and exchanged kicks that were not penalized by the referee or the VAR. At the end of the first 45′, there were no differences and the match went 0-0 at halftime.
Uruguay came out with everything to complement and in the first minutes overwhelmed Italy, which showed many defensive imbalances that ended up urging it. La Celeste lacked accuracy in the pass and certainty at the time of the definition. At 12′, after a corner, Alan Matturro had his chance with a wonderful header, which went just wide.
Italy practically did not attack in this entire stage and to top it off, Matteo Prati was directly sent off, ten minutes from the end, for a tackle on Fabricio Díaz. However, from the VAR they called the referee Glenn Nyberg and after looking at the image several times, he changed his decision and opted to admonish the Italian midfielder.
The following action, Uruguay reached the much-sought and well-deserved advantage. The minute marked 40 minutes when after a corner kick the ball was bouncing on the penalty spot and after Alan Matturro and Andrés Ferrari collided in their eagerness to convert, the rebound was taken by one of the Uruguayan jewels, Luciano Rodríguez, who headed into the back of the net.
There were 11 teams that won it. Among them, Argentina and Brazil were in charge of showing the world the talent of their young figures by winning eleven of the 22 editions held so far. Now, however, Uruguay will be the representative of the continent that will have to take home a cup that it did not win and expand the dominance of the region in this tournament. But Italy can prevent it.
For La Celeste it is a rematch in which they try to enforce that maxim that “the third time is the charm.” The South Americans played in the finals of Malaysia 1997 and Turkey 2013 and in both cases they had to settle for the silver medal. The Europeans, finally, enjoy playing a final after fulfilling that same motto in the last win against South Korea, where they sealed their ticket to the last game after falling in the semis of the last two tournaments that were played.
Regarding the protagonists, Luciano Rodríguez was enabled to play after serving two suspension dates and Marcelo Broli made him the starter. On the other side, they bet on the goals of Cesare Casadei, the footballer who came to Reading on loan from Chelsea, scored seven in six games and caresses the Golden Boot.