2007 FIFA U-20 World Cup final
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 The BMO Field in 2012 | |||||||
| Event | 2007 FIFA U-20 World Cup | ||||||
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| Date | 22 July 2007 | ||||||
| Venue | BMO Field, Toronto | ||||||
| Man of the Match | Sergio Agüero (Argentina)[1] | ||||||
| Referee | Alberto Undiano Mallenco (Spain) | ||||||
| Attendance | 19,526 | ||||||
The 2007 FIFA U-20 World Cup final was the final match and culmination of the 2007 FIFA U-20 World Cup, hosted by Canada. The match was played at the BMO Field in Toronto on 22 July 2007, and was contested by Argentina and the Czech Republic, being the seventh final for Argentina and the first for the Czechs.[2][3] The match was won by Argentina 2–1, obtaining their sixth FIFA U-20 World Cup and becoming the most successful team at the tournament.[4]
At the 2007 World Cup, Argentina U-20 was seeking the back-to-back trophy, having previously won the 2005 FIFA World Youth Championship in the Netherlands, where a Messi-led team defeated Nigeria 2–1 in the final.[3] In 2007, then Atlético Madrid striker Sergio Agüero captained the team.[5] For the Czechs, the final in Toronto marked their first final at a FIFA U-20 World Cup since appearing as an independent country for the first time in the 2001 FIFA U-20 World Cup in Argentina, and remains, to October 2025, as their country's best performance at a youth tournament.
Both Argentina and the Czech Republic were pooled into Group E,[6] facing each other in the first match of the group, which ended in a goalless draw.[6] Argentina went on to crush Panama 6–0 and narrowly defeat North Korea 1–0,[6] while the Czechs' game with North Korea ended in a 2–2 draw, to later defeat Panama 2–1 in the group's last match day.[7][6] Argentina advanced to the round of 16 with seven points, while the Czech Republic secured the second place.[6] Both North Korea and Panama were eliminated in that first round.[7][5][6]
The road to the final was harder for Czechia than for Argentina. In the round of 16, the Czechs advanced to the next round after a hard-fought match against Japan, eventually defeating them by penalties.[6] In the quarter-finals, Czechia held another draw, this time with Spain.[6] By scoring the first four penalty kicks, the Czechs advanced to the semifinals, where they defeated Austria 2–0.[6]
Argentina, on the other side, defeated Poland in the round of 16 (3–1), Mexico in the quarter-finals by a margin of 1–0, and the hosts Chile by a score of 3–0[5] in a controversial and tense match which ended with Chilean players confronting the match's official, German referee Wolfgang Stark, and later clashing with Toronto police, which left some of the Chilean players pepper-sprayed, tasered, and briefly arrested by Canadian police. The match reached diplomacy when Chilean President Michelle Bachelet filed a complaint against the Canadian government and protests took place in Santiago against the alleged repression and racism of Canadian police.[8] The Canadian embassy in Santiago received a bomb threat and security around the building was upgraded.[8] Prime Minister Stephen Harper minimized the issue and didn't comment further.[9]
