This blog is up a little bit earlier than usual.

Group C (Toronto, Edmonton & Montreal)
Portugal, New Zealand, Gambia and Mexico

Portugal is one of the few nations that can boast of winning a world football title and what is more they have done it twice. Back in 1989 Portugal won the World under-20s and then retained the title two years later. However, it has been eight years since they last made it to the tournament that all Portuguese consider to be very special.

Former Porto Coach Jose Couceiro is in charge of a squad that on paper looks to be strong but that disappointed in qualifying. To make it to the final round in Europe Portugal had Macedonia to thank for drawing against both Israel and Croatia.

Grouped with Spain, Scotland and Turkey, Portugal drew all three games but still finished third ahead of Turkey. They had to battle back from two goals down to share the points with Scotland but led 3-1 and 4-3 to Turkey before sharing the spoils.

Under normal circumstance a draw against Spain would have been an excellent result but with Scotland beating Turkey 3-2 it was not enough to move into the semi finals. The consolation was that third place was good enough to book a trip to Canada.

Bruno Gama (Braga) was Portugal’s best player last summer’s and looks set to be the man to watch once again. Defender Antunes (Pacos Ferreira) also comes with high expectations. 

Mexico has already shown that they can play with the best. The win at the under-17 World Cup in Peru two years ago was a long awaited break-through for a country that has historically produced talented but psychologically brittle sides.

Coach Jesus Ramirez was in charge of the world champion squad. A top four finish this time might be enough to encourage the Mexican FA to appoint him to replace Hugo Sanchez who has made an unimpressive start with the senior squad.

Barcelona recognized the new wave of talent emerging from Mexico and has acquired a significant contingent of young Mexican players.

Giovanni Dos Santos, Jorge Hernandez and Efraín Juárez Valdez are all part of the Barcelona set up.

Giovanni Dos Santos’ father was a Brazilian striker called Zizinho who played for America and Leon. The youngster moved to Spain to join Barcelona at the age of twelve after being spotted playing in an international youth tournament. Since then awareness of his prodigious talent has grown exponentially to the point that everyone will tell you that he is a fantastic talent but few have actually seen him play. Over the next few weeks we will. According to the Barcelona coaching staff Dos Santos is primarily a goal scorer but with the other facets of his game gaining quickly.    

Jorge Hernandez is known for his range of passing and is currently on loan with Atlas. Efraín Juárez Valdez (on loan to Barbate) has “impressive ball control, awareness, passing and versatility.” 

Carlos Vela has already been featured in a previous blog.  Cesar Villaluz (Cruz Azul) was part of the attacking troika along with Dos Santos and Vela and should play a key role again.

Patricio Araujo (Chivas Guadalajara) captained the Mexico side in 2005 and will lead to team once more. A defender, Araujo is considered the heir apparent to Mexican central defender Rafael Marquez.

Gambia will be making its debut at this level after proving to be the surprise team in African qualifying when winning the bronze medal. In the group stage they finished top ahead of the hosts Congo, Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso but fell 3-1 to Nigeria in the semi final. Ousmane Jallow and Abdoulie Mansaly were pivotal in African qualifying but Gambia will again be missing Momodou Ceasay. Ceasay has been troubled by injury and despite an operation in Switzerland the highly regarded striker will not be in Canada.

New Zealand qualified through the Oceania federation now bereft of the dominant Australians since they moved to the Asian Federation. Even then the Kiwis made heavy work of qualifying and relied heavily on Chris James (Fulham). The New Zealand team will no doubt enjoy the experience but it would be a monumental achievement if they make it to the last sixteen. 

Predicted finish – 1. Mexico, 2. Portugal, 3. Gambia and 4. New Zealand.

Pablo has written to tell us that this is the latest speculation regarding Chile’s starting line-up (3-5-2) for their first game against Canada.

Christopher Toselli in goal; Nicolas larrondo, Mauricio Isla and Christian Suarez; Dagoberto Currimilla, Gary Medel, Arturo Vidal, Carlos Carmona and Gerardo Cortes; Mathias Vidangossy and Nicolas Medina.

You can send any information (fsr@mts.net) that you think might be of interest about the twenty-four countries and I will post a regular selection. If you have a FIFA Under-20 blog go ahead and post your link under comments.