Japan came from behind and claimed all three points in a 2-1 win over South Africa at Suwon World Cup Stadium in Group D of the 2017 U-20 FIFA World Cup.<\/p>\n
Grant Margeman opened the scoring for South Africa in the seventh minute when he deftly controlled a high through-ball in the box before firing past goalkeeper Ryosuke Kojima.<\/p>\n
Both sides created goal-scoring chances throughout the first half, but their\u00a0end products were\u00a0not good enough.<\/p>\n
Japan came out firing on all cylinders in the second half and scored just a few minutes in.<\/p>\n
Koki Ogawa showed his ability in the box and finished a cross from the Japanese left. Mondi Mpoto got his hands to the ball, but not before it had crossed the line.<\/p>\n
Japan then completed their comeback in style thanks to Ritsu Doan, who curled a shot beyond Mpoto’s reach into the far corner after some well-worked build-up play with teammate Takefusa Kubo.<\/p>\n
The young Samurais are now top of Group D after their first victory. Uruguay U-20 are second in the group, while South Africa U-20 and Italy U-20 are third and fourth, respectively.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Japan came from behind and claimed all three points in a 2-1 win over South Africa at Suwon World Cup Stadium in Group D of the 2017 U-20 FIFA World Cup. Grant Margeman opened the scoring for South Africa in the seventh minute when he deftly controlled a high through-ball in the box before firing past goalkeeper Ryosuke Kojima. Both sides created goal-scoring chances throughout the first half, but their\u00a0end products were\u00a0not good enough. Japan came out firing on all cylinders in the second half and scored just a few minutes in. Koki Ogawa showed his ability in the box and finished a cross from the Japanese left. Mondi Mpoto … Continue reading “Japan kick-start U-20 World Cup campaign with victory”<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":90,"featured_media":3653,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,32],"tags":[825,824,679],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3652"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/90"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3652"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3652\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}