Australia U20 v Argentina U20 | Match Preview | FIFA U-20 World Cup Chile 2025™
The CommBank Young Socceroos will be back in action on Thursday morning (AEST), taking on Argentina in the second group stage game of the FIFA U-20 World Cup Chile 2025™.
Trevor Morgan’s men will be hoping to bounce back after a narrow defeat against Italy in the first game, while Argentina are coming off a 3-1 victory against Cuba.
Both nations will be relatively familiar with each other as the two sides recently met during the June FIFA window in Buenos Aires for a two-match friendly series which saw the Aussies fall 2-1 and 2-0 respectively.
Read our preview of the action below.
The tournament so far
Australia battled hard against Italy, but were unable to overcome an early penalty, despite creating opportunities throughout the game. The 1-0 defeat means that a point or more against Argentina would be incredibly valuable if they wish to progress from the group.
The game didn’t exactly go to plan for Argentina against Cuba after an early red card to Santiago Fernandez - however, they were still able to walk away with the 3-1 victory. Despite playing with 10 players for more than 80 minutes, Diego Placente's team had no issues advancing past their less fancied opponents.
Argentina are currently top of Group D, while Australia are third.
The opponent
Argentina is the most successful team in the history of FIFA U-20 World Cups, having won the tournament six times out of its 23 editions.
Their last victory came in 2007 when former Manchester City star Sergio Aguero won the Golden Ball at the tournament.
They hosted the last edition of the tournament, in 2023, where they were eliminated in the Round of 16.
Their current Head Coach is former senior international Diego Placente. He is best known for his time at Bayer Leverkusen in the early 2000s and has been involved in the Argentine youth setup since 2017, when he was the assistant at U15 level.
He was appointed Head Coach of the U20 team at the beginning of this year. He has history at the tournament, having won it himself in 1997.
Fourteen of Argentina’s 21-player squad are based in their home nation. Names familiar to Australian football fans may be Julio Soler of Bournemouth, or Alejo Sarco at Bayer Leverkusen.
Sarco is a player to watch for this game after scoring a brace in their win over Cuba.
What they said
Trevor Morgan, Head Coach
You're going to get another authentic performance from the boys. They're going to be better. Because the experience the other day, you either win or you learn, and we learned areas we can be better. So I think in this match, we'll take it to Argentina. We have no fear, and we'll play on the front foot.
They [the players] are here to experience the highest level of football at their age group. And they're here to show that they can handle it - physically, tactically, mentally. This group has had to fight before and I know they will now.
Sebastian Esposito
We've got players that can score at any time of the game. That's why we keep pushing to the last minute.
We treat every opponent the same, at the end of the day. Just need to refocus and get back on the training pitch and get ready for them.
Alex Badolato
We just need to work on breaking that [defence] down a bit better, moving the ball a bit quicker, side to side. Then in defence, probably fixing our distances. Make sure we don't get caught out with too many balls in behind. Just make sure we're all there to work together, and we'll be definitely working on that in this next game.
There's not a big gap between all the teams. Anyone can beat anyone on their day. You look at some of the scores, you can see there's no clear favourite, no clear team who's better than everyone else. Everyone's at a really, really strong level, and we're right there with them. That gives us a lot of excitement and confidence going into these next two games.
Josh Inserra
It's a tournament, so you have to regroup quickly. There's games every three days, so you've got to be quick, and that's it. So we'll come together and we're ready.
We've got a lot of depth in this squad, which is really good. We have a lot of good players forward, and this is where we play our best football, in those pockets. Going forward, we have a lot of creativity. It says a lot about our team, where we play and how many chances we create. We just need to make sure we create more of those clear-cut chances, and we score them.
Match Details
Australia U20 v Argentina U20
Date: Wednesday, 1 October 2025 / Thursday, 2 October 2025 (AUS)
Time: 8.00pm (local) / 9.00am (AEST)
Venue: Estadio Elías Figueroa Brander, Valparaíso, Chile
Broadcast: Live on SBS and SBS On Demand