The 2007 FIFA U-20 World Cup was the 16th edition of the FIFA U-20 World Cup (formerly called the FIFA World Youth Championship), hosted by Canada from 30 June to 22 July 2007. Argentina defeated the Czech Republic in the title game by the score of 2–1, thus managing a back-to-back world title, its fifth in the past seven editions, and sixth overall. Argentine player Sergio Agüero was given the FIFA U-20 Golden Shoe (top scorer, with six goals) and the FIFA U-20 Golden Ball (best player of the tournament), while Japan earned the FIFA Fair Play Award.
The tournament featured 24 teams coming from six continental confederations; Canada qualified automatically as hosts, while the remaining teams qualified based on their rankings at the respective continental U-20 (U-19 in Europe's case) tournaments. UEFA (Europe) qualified six teams; AFC (Asia), CAF (Africa), CONCACAF (North, Central America and Caribbean) and CONMEBOL (South America) four teams each; and OFC (Oceania) one team.
The tournament took place in a variety of venues across the country – Toronto, Edmonton, Montreal, Ottawa, Victoria and Burnaby (Vancouver) – with the showcase stadium being Toronto's new National Soccer Stadium where the final match was held. 19 years later Canada will co-host the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
On 28 June 2007, two days before the inaugural match, it was reported that 950,000 tickets had been sold, making it the largest single-sport event ever taking place in the country, and on 3 July, the tournament organizers sold the millionth ticket. On 19 July, the semi-final match between Chile and Argentina marked this edition as the most attended in the tournament's history, with an accumulated attendance of 1,156,187 spectators, surpassing Mexico 1983's 1,155,160 spectators. Attendance totalled 1,195,299 after the final match.
Bids
Three countries launched bids to host the competition: Canada, Japan and South Korea. On August 6, 2004 the FIFA Emergency Committee unanimously awarded the rights to host the event to Canada over South Korea (Japan did not submit an official bid).
Venues
Qualification
Twenty-three teams qualified for the 2007 FIFA U-20 World Cup. As the host team, Canada received an automatic bid, bringing the total number of teams to twenty-four for the tournament. The final draw for the group stages took place on 3 March 2007 in Liberty Grand Entertainment Complex, Toronto.
1.Teams that made their debut.
Match officials
Squads
For a list of the squads see 2007 FIFA U-20 World Cup squads
Group stage
The 24 participating teams were distributed between six groups of four teams each, according to a draw held on 3 March 2007. The groups are contested on a league system, where each team plays one time against the other teams in the same group, for a total of six matches per group. Each group winner and runner-up teams, as well as the best four third-placed teams, qualify for the first round of the knockout stage (round of 16).
Group A
Group B
Group C
Group D
Group E
Group F
Ranking of third-placed teams
Knockout stage
Round of 16
Quarter-finals
Semi-finals
Match for third place
Final
Goalscorers
With six goals, Sergio Agüero is the top scorers in the tournament. In total, 135 goals were scored by 84 different players, with one of them credited as own goals.