Nigeria’s perennial rival, Ghana, begin their quest for qualification to the next round of the Under 20 Women World Cup with a clash with hosts, Canada at the Toronto National Stadium.
The match which will hold at 8pm local time will fall within the early hours of tomorrow morning in Nigeria.
Significantly, the two teams are acclaimed to be the youngest in terms of the ages of the players.
Ghana’s squad has an average age of 18 years and seven months while that of Canada is 18 years and nine months.
The sides cross paths for the first time in the U-20 Women’s World Cup. Canada and Ghana have met once in the Women’s World Cup and twice in the FIFA Women’s U-17 World Cup, resulting in North American victories on each occasion.
With two wins and one defeat, the Canadians have a favourable track record against African opponents in the U-20 Women’s World Cup. The Canadians also faced CAF representatives on home soil in the inaugural edi- tion, when they overcame Nigeria 2-0 in their last group game.
Besides having lost their last three U-20 Women’s World Cup matches, all in the opening round of the 2012 edition, Ghana have not scored for 318 con- secutive minutes of play.
Their last goal was netted by Elizabeth Cudjoe, el- der sister of current squad member Jennifer, in a 2-0 victory over Switzerland in 2010.
Before the hosts and the Ghanaians take to the pitch at the National Soccer Sta- dium in Toronto, Finland and Korea DPR will trade tackles. Like in the Canada versus Ghana duel, these two teams are also squaring up for the first time in a FIFA women’s competition.
But the Korea DPR side is more favoured to win the match. The teams has a positive record against Eu- ropean teams in the U-20 Women’s World Cup, with six wins and two defeats fromeight showdowns.
Finland lost all three of  their previous U-20 Wom- en’s World Cup games in the 2006 edition and have not scored for 269 minutes. Finland’s only goal in the history of the event was an own goal recorded in the first minute of its maiden match by China’s Yuan Fan. On the other hand, Korea DPR girls are yet to draw a game in 20 duels at the U-20 Women’s World Cup.
Elsewhere at the Edmon- ton Commonwealth Sta- dium, two immediate past champions, Germany and the USA will clash. The two teams have won five of the six editions of the tour- nament. The Americans are three times champions while the Germans had won twice.
Also, they have contested the most games in the tournament’s history having played 34 matches each. The two sides are so familiar that they had met six times in the last six tournaments.
But the Americans hold the upper hand historically with four wins to two, in- cluding a 1-0 triumph in the 2012 final. Besides that final two years ago, Germany and USA have locked horns in three semi- finals (2002, 2004 and 2008), one quarter-final (2006) and also met in the group round in 2012, when the Germans ran out 3-0 winners.
The last match for today pairs up China and Brazil. The game holds in Edmon- to after that of Germany and the USA.
Fact File on Canada 2014
• The FIFA U-20 Wom- en’s World Cup is staged every two years.
• The 2014 edition in Canada will be the seventh FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup.
• The inaugural tourna- ment took place in Canada in 2002 and was actually an U-19 event, which was then changed to an U-20 event in Russia in 2006.
• A total of 31 different teams have qualified for at least one of the final com- petitions (2002-2014). The continental breakdown runs thus: Asia (7), Africa (3), North and Central America (4), South America (5), Oce- ania* (2) and Europe (11)
• Nigeria, Brazil, Germa- ny and the USA are the only teams to have qualified for all final competitions held to date.*Includes Australia af- filiated to OFC for the first two competitions then AFC after 2006
•The Paraguayans are the only newcomers to this year’s tournament.
•With three titles and 26 wins in 34 matches the USA lead the Women’s U-20 All- time Ranking.
•The highest number of goals per match, 3.88, was recorded in the inaugural tournament in Canada in 2002, followed by 3.54 in Thailand in 2004 and 3.53 in Chile in 2008.
•The youngest player to have taken part in this com- petition is Sydney Leroux (playing for Canada in 2004 – now for USA), who was just 14 years and 6 months old.
•Mexico’s Charlyn Cor- ral became the competition’s youngest goal scorer (at just 14 years and 11months) when she scored against Switzerland in August 2006
•A new attendance re- cord was set at the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup Germany 2010; 395,295 fans in total with an average of 12,353 per match. Ger- many 2010 set a new bench- mark that will be difficult to beat.
•Two final matches have had teams play from the same confederation. The USA played Canada in 2002 and Korea DPR played Chi- na PR in Russia in 2006.

FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup: Ghana clashes with hosts in tournament opener