1979 FIFA World Youth

1979 FIFA World Youth Championship

Japan hosted the second FIFA World Youth Championship from August 26 to September 7, 1979.

The tournament took place in four venues - Kobe, Omiya, Tokyo and Yokohama where a total of 32 matches were played. Sixteen teams took part, Japan, Argentina, Soviet Union, Poland, Yugoslavia, Spain, Mexico, Algeria, Indonesia, Canada, Portugal, South Korea, Paraguay, Hungary, Uruguay and Guinea. In the Final in Tokyo’s National Stadium, the superb Argentina team deservedly came from behind to defeat the Soviet Union 3–1 in front of 52,000 spectators, with second-half goals from Alves, Diaz and 18 year old Diego Armando Maradona, the undoubted star of the tournament.

The official FIFA World Youth Championship programme is 116 x A4 pages in Japanese. It covers full details and photos of the venues and competing teams along with further detailed information on the Japanese players and details of the 1977 FIFA World Youth Championship won by the Soviet Union. The programme does suffer from a general production fault to do with the adhesive used to bind the programme which causes the pages to noticeably stick together close to the spine – I have noticed this on every copy of the programme I have seen.