Qantas Young Socceroos bow out of FIFA U-20 World Cup

The Qantas Young Socceroos are out of the FIFA U-20 World Cup Colombia 2011 after they were defeated by Spain 5-1 at the Estadio Palogrande in Manizales tonight.

The Qantas Young Socceroos are out of the FIFA U-20 World Cup Colombia 2011 after they were defeated by Spain 5-1 at the Estadio Palogrande in Manizales tonight.

Spain were four goals up in the opening 18 minutes of the match with three of the goals coming from Alvaro Vazques. Kerem Bulut managed to pull a goal back for the Qantas Young Socceroos in the 27th minute but Sergio Canales was on target from the penalty spot to score Spain-s fifth goal of the match just after the half hour mark.

As promised, Qantas Young Socceroos Head Coach Jan Versleijen made a couple of changes to the starting line-up with Bernie Ibini-Isei and Mustafa Amini coming on in place of Ben Kantarovski and Dimitrios Petratos and goalkeeper Mark Birighitti given the captain-s armband in the absence of the suspended Kantarovski.

Spain opened the scoring as early as the 1st minute of the match. Sergio Canales set up Sergi Roberto at the top of the box and Roberto made no mistake as he placed his shot beyond the reach of Birighitti. Vazquez almost doubled Spain-s lead in the 4th minute but Birighitti was on hand to stop Vazquez-s run in the box.

Birighitti was however unable to deny Vazquez two minutes later. Daniel Pacheco played a through ball behind the defence and Vazquez fired his shot home for his first and Spain-s second goal of the match.

Vazquez doubled his tally in the 13th minute having timed his run to perfection as he collected a defence splitting pass before rounding Birighitti and tapping the ball home. Vazquez completed his hat trick five minutes later when he headed home from a corner.

Bulut managed to pull a goal back for the Qantas Young Socceroos in the 27th minute when he intercepted the ball from a Spanish defender before cutting inside goalkeeper Fernando Pacheco to slot the ball into the empty net.

Spain restored their four goal advantage four minutes later. Trent Sainsbury was deemed to have fouled Vazquez in the penalty box and referee had no choice but to point to the spot and showed Sainsbury a yellow card. Canales made no mistake from the spot to send Birighitti the wrong way and put Spain 5-1 up before the break.

Coach Jan Versleijen made two changes at half time. Birthday boy Dylan McGowan and Dimitrios Petratos came on for Trent Sainsbury and Bernie Ibini-Isei.

The Qantas Young Socceroos found their feet in the second half and even looked more likely to score. Terry Antonis and Bulut both had two shots on target but substitute goalkeeper Alex was on hand to prevent Australia-s second goal of the match.

Although the result was never in doubt, the Qantas Young Socceroos worked hard throughout the second half to restore some pride and salvage what they could from the match. Unfortunately, there was no change to the score by the time the referee blew full-time.

An obviously disappointed Jan Versleijen made his thoughts on the match clear at the post-match media conference.

“Six minutes and it-s already 2-0. Thirteen minutes it-s 3-0 and eighteen minutes it-s 4-0. Then you have to play against Spain which is one of the better teams in this World Cup, who are very good at possessing the ball, moving the ball around, a lot of technical skills. After six minutes you can almost say the game is gone,” said Versleijen.

“It is very obvious that, in the first 15 minutes of this game, especially in the backline, we had some players that were not at a World Cup level.

“And if you-re not concentrating and not in the game then against good opposition like Spain you will be penalised straight away.

“The thing is, when you have to play a third game against one of the better teams in this World Cup and you know you have to win this game, you have to also take some risks.

“But Spain took very good advantage of the risk that we had to take in order to put more pressure on them.

Asked about what he thought of the quality of Spain and their chances in the rest of the Tournament, Versleijen was highly complementary of their performances to date.

“It is very obvious that Spain has a good team. They play beautiful football and they are a very technical side.

“I think they have a good chance to reach the finals.

“It-s difficult to say which team they will possibly meet in the final as I don-t know exact cross-overs.

“But from this tournament I see that Nigeria is very strong and also Colombia makes a very good impression.

When asked what the future holds for his team, Versleijen was already looking to the next challenge.

“For us the World Cup of course is finished.

“For five of the players here at this World Cup are also eligible for the next World Cup.

“This will start already next week when we go to a preparation tournament in Japan and in October we have the pre-qualifiers in Asia,” concluded Versleijen

In the other Group C match Ecuador secured second place in the group with an emphatic 3-0 win over Costa Rica.

The Qantas Young Socceroos will now return to their clubs in Australia and overseas to continue their domestic duties.

In the next couple of days Jan Versleijen will name his first squad for the next group of Qantas Young Socceroos who will participate at the Toyota Cup in Japan later this month as part of their preparations for the AFC U-19 Championships qualifiers which will be played in China in October 2011, the first step towards qualifying for the FIFA U-20 World Cup Turkey 2013.

Match Details: Qantas Young Socceroos 1 (Kerem Bulut 27-) Spain U-20-s 5 (Sergio Roberto 1-, Alvaro Vazquez 6-/13-/18-, Sergio Canales 31-(pen)) FIFA U-20 World Cup - Group C Saturday 6 August Estadio Palogrande, Manizales Referee: Wilson SENEME (BRA) Assistant Referees: Emerson Augusto DE CARVALHO (BRA) & Alessandro ROCHA (BRA) Fourth Official: Dario UMBRIACO (URU) Crowd: 14 548

Qantas Young Socceroos line-up: 1.Mark BIRIGHITTI (gk) (c), 2.Rhyan GRANT, 4.Trent SAINSBURY (3.Dylan MCGOWAN 46-), 5.Marc WARREN, 7.Kofi DANNING , 8.Terry ANTONIS, 9. Kerem BULUT, 10.Mustafa AMINI, 11.Tommy OAR, 15.Brendan HAMILL, 19.Bernie IBINI-ISEI (21.Dimitrios PETRATOS 46-)

Substitutes Not Used: 12. Nick FEELY (gk), 13.Matthew FLETCHER, 14. Corey GAMEIRO, 16.Petar FRANJIC, 17.Sam GALLAGHER, 18.Matthew ACTON (gk), 20.Jake BARKER-DAISH

Not available for selection: 6.Ben KANTAROVSKI

Yellow Cards: Trent Sainsbury 30-, Dylan McGowan 82-

Red Cards: Nil

Spain line-up: 21. Fernando PACHECO (gk) (1. ALEX (gk) 46-), 2. Hugo MALLO (19. EZEQUIEL 62-), 3. Antonio LUNA, 4. Marc BARTRA (c) (12. Carles PLANAS 46-), 5. Jorge PULIDO, 7. KIKO, 8. RECIO, 10. Sergio CANALES, 11. Daniel PACHECO, 17. Sergio ROBERTO, 20. Alvaro VAZQUEZ

Substitutes Not Used: 9. RODRIGO, 13. AITOR (gk), 14. Jordi AMAT, 15. ISCO, 16. KOKE, 18. Cristian TELLO

Not available for selection: 6. Oriol ROMEU

Yellow Cards: Nil

Red Cards: Nil