in the actual World Cup years later.
I’ll go out on a limb and opine that African countries outperform at the U20 level due to the difficulties in proving actual ages in those countries.
WikipediaThe FIFA U-20 World Cup is the biennial football world championship for male players under the age of 20, organised by FIFA. The competition has been staged every two years since the first tournament in 1977 held in Tunisia. Until 2005 it was known as the FIFA World Youth Championship.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIFA_U-20_World_Cup[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIFA_U-20_World_Cup]