It’s not the first time some nation brings their best players from this age into this competition.
I know it’s a old example because it was in 1994, but the other day I rewatched the final of this competition between Portugal and Italy.
Guess what? Portugal played this final with 4 or 5 players who were already starters for the main team who finished behind Italy and Switzerland for USA 94.
Meanwhile none of the Italy players had any significant role for the senior team under Sacchi, despite having players like Toldo, Panucci, Cannavaro, Benito Carbone, Inzaghi and so on.
The guy who scored the golden goal for Italy never was a significant player in Série A at the time. Orlandini.
This to say, was it a big problem for Portugal to lose this competition with already established players at club level or in the senior team?
I guess not, after all 2 years later João Pinto, Figo or Rui Costa were regular starters at Euro 96 and in Euro 2000 those 3 more Jorge Costa or Abel Xavier.
What’s against the spirit of the competition? There’s not a sacred rule for this type of competition, the development of the players is done at club level.
If Italy wins the decision was right, if they lose they were wrong. After all Kean, Zaniolo or Tonali were playing last year the under 19’s final vs Portugal and now they have a couple of caps on the senior team.
The only difference was that in the 90’s under Cesare Maldini they had world class players who could have started for a lot of NT’s but didn’t had space on their team. Now they have.
By the way my opinion is that they’re going on the right direction, second consecutive under 20 WC they reach the last 4, 2 consecutive finals with the under 17’s, a final with the under 19’s, players who already are established at Serie A. We’re seeing problems where they don’t exist imo.