Mexico and Italy meet as U20 World Cup kicks off

Picture: Sky Sports

The U20 World Cup is finally here.

Mexico and Italy will kick things off on Thursday afternoon along with Tahiti and Senegal.

Ecuador and Japan are the other teams in Group B who will later in the day at 2:30 p.m. ET.

Mexico won two of their five games in the 2017 edition before losing to England 1-0 in the quarter-finals.

They come into this summer’s tournament with a completely new squad; Diego Lainez will definitely be their key player as the Real Betis winger has featured for the senior team four times.

Italy went all the way to the semifinals in 2017 where they won the third/fourth place game on penalties against Uruguay.

The Italians have one survivor from the 2015 tournament with 19-year-old goalkeeper Alessandro Plizzari from AC Milan in the squad. Marco Oliveri from Juventus could prove to be a key player and will be hoping to follow in Riccardo Orsolini’s footsteps from 2015 who won the Golden Boot.

Kickoff is at 12 p.m. ET. on Thursday afternoon at Stadion GOSiR in Gydnia. The game will be televised in Canada on TSN 2.

Squads

Mexico: Carlos Higuera, Luis Lopes, Angel Alonzo; Kevin Alvarez, Gilberto Sepulveda, Efrain Orona, Naelson Cardenas, Oswaldo Leon, Mario Trejo; Diego Hernandez, Misael Dominguez, Roberto Meraz, Fernando Plascencia, Carlos Gutierrez, Antonio Figueroa; Jose Mascias, Diego Lainez, Roberto De La Rosa, Daniel Lopez, Adrian Lopez.

Italy: Alessandro Plizzari, Leonardo Loria, Marco Carnesecchi; Antonio Candela, Alessandro Tripaldelli, Davide Bettella, Alessandro Buongiorno, Raoul Bellanova, Enrica Del Prato, Luca Ranieri, Luca Pellegrini; Salvatore Esposito, Roberto Alberico, Andrea Colpani, Davide Frattesi, Matteo Gabbia; Andrea Pinamonti, Christian Capone, Gianluca Scamacca, Gabirele Gori, Marco Oliveri.