Young guns scrap for Golden Boot

The 50 games so far at the FIFA U-20 World Cup 2013 in Turkey have produced exactly 149 goals, some of them breathtakingly good.

Friday, July 12, 2013

The 50 games so far at the FIFA U-20 World Cup 2013 in Turkey have produced exactly 149 goals, some of them breathtakingly good. They have been scored by a total of 96 different players, yet only an elite handful remain in the running for a very special individual award, the traditional adidas Golden Boot for the top scorer at the tournament. But who will succeed Henrique, winner of the prestigious award in Colombia two years ago with five goals in seven games for Brazil, the absent holders of the U-20 crown?In the current contest, which ends this Saturday when France meet Uruguay in the Istanbul final, three players are level at the top of the goalscoring chart on five goals.  Portugal’s new attacking jewel Bruma is currently in first place because he only required 360 minutes on the field for his five goals. He is followed by Spain’s Jese (429 minutes) and Ghana’s Ebenezer Assifuah (496 minutes). However, the west African has a clear edge in the betting, because in contrast to the other two, his team are still in the tournament, with the Black Satellites primed to take on Iraq in the match for third place. Sporting Lisbon prodigy Bruma is still only 18, but even before the tournament great things were predicted for the ruthless finisher. Nevertheless, the route to Turkey, where the Portuguese ultimately fell to Ghana in the last sixteen, was not particularly easy for him, as he recently revealed to FIFA.com: "The last few years have been important for my development. I didn’t have the right attitude to begin with, but I think I’ve improved in that respect. All I wanted to do was dribble with the ball, do nutmegs and flick the ball over people’s heads.