Report and Statistics - FIFA.com

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Overall Analysis
Story of the Championship
Stories from and around
the tournament
U-20 for fi rst time
This was the fi rst championship at U-20 level
as previously it had been played at U-19 level.
The number of participating teams had also
been increased from 12 to 16 teams, giving
more countries the opportunity to participate.
Interestingly, although the age category
had moved to U-20, the average age of the
players was still 18 years and 11 months, almost
identical to the average age at the FIFA
U-19 Women’s World Championship Thailand
2004. This is a clear sign that the development
of women’s football is taking place
mostly with young players.
Venues
The tournament was hosted by two beautiful
cities: Moscow (four different stadiums) and
St Petersburg. This curtailed the amount of
travelling. The stadiums were well prepared
to host the event.
Newcomers
New Zealand, Argentina, Congo DR, Finland
and Switzerland all qualifi ed for a FIFA
Women’s World Championship at youth level
for the fi rst time and they all put up brave
performances.
Physique
Physique is another talking point. The adage
that a good player has to be tall and
strong was disproven as the shorter players
from Asian proved that strength and speed,
combined with good technique and tactics,
are the more important components of the
modern player. A higher number of injuries
occurred, but it must be noted that the less
developed countries and teams with less experience
in competitive games were not on
the same physical level as the world-class
teams. This is defi nitely an area where such
teams have to work and improve.
Coaches
There was only one female head coach,
Maren Meinert from Germany, and only
seven teams had a woman as an assistant
coach, namely China PR, Congo DR, France,
Germany, New Zealand, Nigeria and Switzerland.
However, the male coaches had a
huge amount of experience. Prime examples
of this were the coaches of Finland (Jarmo
Matikainen, who is also the technical director
of the Finnish football association), China
PR (Shang Ruihua, who was the coach of
the senior women’s national team in 1991),
Mexico (Leonardo Cuellar, who is a former
Mexican international and an experienced
coach as well as a FIFA women’s football
coaching instructor) and Korea DPR (Choe
Kwang-sok, who was the Koreans’ coach at
the FIFA Women’s World Cup USA in 2003
and has experience of many competitions
from 1998 onwards). While these coaches
need to try and open doors for more female
coaches, efforts must be stepped up to ensure
that more women are included in team
delegations, even though a balance between
male and female coaches is still important.
It is crucial for young players to see female
role models and there must be increased opportunities
for women and former players to
continue their work in women’s football.
Coaching
Coaching took on a new level with the
New Zealand technical team making use of
walkie-talkies to coach the team, as head
coach John Herdman went into the stands
and sent down instructions to his bench,
which were then relayed to his charges on
the fi eld. Some teams had more technical
staff by adding more specialists. The addition
of goalkeeper coaches saw the goalkeeping
improve when compared to previous championships
and there was good medical support
at the event, which helped to ensure that the
teams were more professional during training
sessions and games.
Refereeing
The refereeing also improved thanks to the
workshops and improved development work
and preparation camps organised by FIFA. The
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