Spain Wins Youth World Cup

          LAGOS (Agencies via Xinhua) _ Spain won the World Youth Championship final here on           Saturday, taking its first ever Fifa championship win, knocking out Japan 4-0 with one of               the best performances of the tournament.

• The Spanish, who lost 1-0 to Brazil in the 1985 youth final, showed they had no intention of repeating that performance with a first goal coming in the fifth minute through Jose Javier Barquero.

  Japanese coach Philippe Troussier had warned on Friday that Spain would be difficult to stop if they got away to a good start.

  "I believe that the first half of the match will be very important for us. Spain wins games in the first half... If we're losing by a big margin before half-time, then we have no chance of winning the cup," he said on the eve of the match.

  On Saturday his side was unable to stop the predicted Spanish onslaught as Pablo Gonzalez scored twice, in the 14th and 33rd minutes, to become joint top scorer of the competition.

  The first half was dominated entirely by the European side who put in 10 shots on target and had four corners to two shots and no corners for the Japanese.

  In the second half it was the same story.

  Brimming with confidence, Spain, coached by Inaki Saez Ruiz, came out strongly and in the 52nd minute Gabriel Francisco Garcia de la Torre of Barcelona stroked in Spain's fourth.

  In the match for third place, played earlier, the surprise find of the tournament, Mali, beat Uruguay 1-0, scoring with a free-kick goal by Olympique Marseille striker Seydou Keita in the 30th minute.

  In individual awards, Mali's Seydou Keita was voted the best player by journalists while Nigeria's Pius Ikedia won the "silver boot" of the competition and Spain's Pablo Gonzalez the bronze.