Tuesday 31 October 2017, 13:20

India 2017 in numbers

The FIFA U-17 World Cup India 2017 came to a fitting conclusion with a match that encapsulated the high quality of the event and the attacking prowess of the teams involved. England, the tournament's top scorers, ran out worthy winners against a Spain side that let slip a 2-0 lead and found themselves on the wrong end of a 5-2 score-line, losing their fourth U-17 World Cup final in the process.

The Three Lions got their hands on the silverware, as was the case at the FIFA U-20 World Cup in Korea Republic this June, when an England youth team also took the title.

Enjoy some of the main stats from the tournament, courtesy of FIFA.com.

1.35 1,347,133 spectators watched this year’s tournament, making it the best attended FIFA U-17 World Cup and finally breaking the record set by the inaugural event, held in China PR in 1985 (1.23 million fans). An average of 25,906 spectators per match flocked to the stadiums in India.

2 After winning the FIFA U-20 World Cup 2017, England have now added the FIFA U-17 World Cup 2017 to their trophy cabinet. The only previous country to achieve this double was Brazil back in 2003.

3 The final between England and Spain was the third between two teams from the same confederation and the first between European opponents. Nigeria defeated Ghana 2-1 in 1993 and Mali 2-0 in 2015.

4 After losing their opening match to Brazil, Spain righted the ship and then proceeded to sweep all before them with their sparkling attacking play. But the old adage that defence wins championships was proven, to the chagrin of the Spanish team who fell at the final hurdle for the fourth time in a U-17 World Cup final.

5 Referees were forced to pull out a red card on no fewer than five occasions, along with 141 yellow cards.

6 Sometimes things don't go to plan. And in India, no fewer than six players put the ball in their own net.

7 Seven goals in this year’s tournament decider made it the highest-scoring final in the competition's history. In the 17 previous finals, only 42 goals had been scored, at an average of 2.47 per final.

8 Winners England certainly knew where the goal was in each of their seven matches at India 2017. They found the back of the net on 23 occasions, with Rhian Brewster notching eight of them, earning him the adidas Golden Boot as the tournament’s top scorer.

99 It took Paraguay’s Alan Rodriguez just 99 seconds to give his team the lead against New Zealand and record the fastest goal of the tournament.

183 Never before had a U-17 World Cup seen as many goals as India 2017 – 183 in 52 matches in fact, at an average of 3.52 per game. The only tournaments with a higher average were Egypt 1997 and Finland 2003, each with 3.66 per match.