All points north! Two years after Trinidad and Tobago in the Caribbean, the FIFA U-17 World Championship has crossed the globe to northern Europe. Welcome to Finland* (“Suomi” in Finnish), the land where breathtaking nature and high-tech industry live in perfect harmony, where lush forests and mobile phones, awesome lakes and the internet exist side by side. Here, on the shores of the Baltic Sea, the best junior sides in the world have assembled for Finland 2003. Read on for a preview of this tenth edition of the tournament.

These are the finest junior teams from each of the six confederations. Based on the principle of one qualifier from Oceania (Australia) and three each from the rest, the sixteen sides - China, Korea Republic, Yemen (Asia), Cameroon, Nigeria, Sierra Leone (Africa), Spain, Finland (qualified as hosts), Portugal (Europe), Argentina, Brazil and Colombia (South America), Costa Rica, United States, Mexico (North, Central American and Caribbean).
Team pages

The delegations are now known. They consist of 20 players compared to 18 last time around. Each team will bring an extra goalkeeper and outfield player with them.
Squad list

Football fans are in for a real treat, as a talented generation of players from all over the world show just what they can do. The Finnish football community will be out in force. Already there are sell-out crowds for the Portugal v Yemen and Cameroon v Brazil games in Tampere. Media coverage will be extensive too: 400 members of the press, radio and television are expected. The top clubs will be sending their scouts, looking to unearth that rare pearl, as will the player agents.

Four stadiums will stage the games and welcome the many oversees visitors. Helsinki, the Finnish capital, will play host to Group A on the artificial turf in Töölö stadium, a first for a FIFA competition.
Artificial turf

Group B, with Argentina, Nigeria, Australia and Costa Rica, will be played out 165 kilometres west of Helsinki in Turku, the former capital. Further to the north, Group C will be staged at Ratina stadium in Tampere. The city can look forward to a mouth-watering clash between Brazil and new European champions Portugal. Group D, meanwhile, will be held closer to Helsinki, in Lahti. Sierra Leone can look forward to appearing in their first-ever FIFA final tournament in a stadium overlooked by a ski jump.

Yemen and Cameroon take their bow in a FIFA tournament too, as do a number of young refeering trios, with the aim of preparing them for the 2010 FIFA World Cup™.
Refereeing

An experiment first tested at Trinidad and Tobago 2001 is to be repeated: the 9.15m (or 10 yard) rule, whereby a team that does not respect the regulation distance at a free-kick is sent back a further 10 yards when the kick is retaken.

Another new initiative will be introduced in Finland. Players receiving a yellow card in consecutive matches will not be automatically suspended for the third, as is the case in other FIFA competitions. Here, a third yellow card will be required for a player to receive a suspension for the next match - a gesture introduced to compensate for the errors of youth. However, unlike in previous tournaments, cards picked up in the first round will be carried over to the knockout stages.
Regulations

From a medical perspective, FIFA will be carrying out MRI scans on the wrists of players chosen at random (three from each of the sixteen sides). This experimental study is part of a series of tests conducted by F-MARC, the FIFA Medical Assessment and Research Centre, with the aim of assessing whether the MRIs can determine the age of the players’ bones. As with F-MARC’s other work, a detailed analysis of the results will be carried out before any conclusions can be drawn, and the results will not be applied to Finland 2003.
F-MARC

So who will succeed France, winners in Trinidad and Tobago two years ago with Le Tallec and Sinama-Pongolle in their ranks. The two young “Bleus” who shone in the Caribbean now turn out for Liverpool, no less. Will we witness another explosion of talent as the next Figo, Totti, Nakata and Ronaldinho grab centre stage? All points north, to Finland for the answers, from 13 to 30 August 2003.