By

Eniola Olatunji 

The North Korean U20 team scored the highest number of goals of 17 out of 138 goals scored at the group stages of the Colombia 2024 world U20 female football competition.

Brazil and France scored 14 goals each while Japan that will meet Nigeria at the R16 stage is 4th with 13 goals. Nigeria scored 6 goals at the games.

Fiji Island conceded the highest goals of 29 in group B at the games followed by New Zealand in group E with 13 goals; Costa Rica in group F allowed 12 goals into her net and Venezuela in group D conceded 9 goals. 

Fiji conceded the highest goals in a single match which was 11-0 in the game against France on 7th September in group B; she also conceded 9 goals each against Brazil on 1st September and Canada on 4th September and Costa Rica also conceded 9 goals against North Korea on 5th September. 

Three countries had clean sheets so far (not conceding a single goal in the games namely hosts Colombia in group A; Brazil in group B and Spain in group C. 

Vendito of Brazil emerged the highest scorer with 5 goals while Anabelle Chuwu of Canada; Liana Joseph of France; Dona Scannapieco also of France; Maya Hijikata of Japan and Il-son Choe of North Korea scored four goals each. Two players of the Falconets, Okwuchuckwu and Flourish Sebastine scored two goals each.

Own Goal scorers are Pauline Aprile of Argentina against North Korea; Saray Benavides of Costa Rica against North Korea; Angeline Rekha of Fiji against France and Goalkeeper Rebecca Adamczyk of Germany against Venezuela.

The fastest goals at the age grade games is still held by Nigerians Coutney Dike  scored against Korea Republic in the 14th second at group stage in Canada 2014; Asisat Oshoala scored 31 seconds in the 4-1 victory over New Zealand in the same games of 2014 quarterfinal and Loredana Riverso of Canada scored 40th minute against DR Congo in 2018. The fastest goal at Columbia 2024 was at three minutes.

Jadea Collin of Canada; Milagros Martin of Argentina and Victoria Santana of Brazil had 2 yellow cards each.

Four nations have become perpetual attendees showing at all the 11 games staged so far namely Columbia; Nigeria; Germany and USA.

The Knock-out stages begin with the Round of 16 matches on Wednesday 11th September with Spain taking on Canada at 2230 hours in Cali while at the same time and date; Brazil will play samba game with Cameroon at Bogota.

On Thursday 12th September at 0200 hours Nigerian morning, hosts Colombia will play the never say tired South Korean girls at Cali and on that date and time Yankee Babes will tackle fellow Continental team of Mexico at Bogota.

Same Thursday at 2230 hours North Korea and Austria will size each other up at Medellin while same time, the German Machine will be in operation against Argentina at Bogota.

The Falconets have a difficult task to dismantle the high tech Japanese team on Friday 13th September at 0200 hours at Medellin while two European nations France and Netherlands will clash at the same time at Medellin to conclude the Round of 16 matches.