Dominic Solanke struck twice as England beat Italy 3-1 to reach the Under -20 World Cup final for the first time in their history on Thursday , AFP reports .
Liverpool-bound Solanke cancelled out Riccardo Orsolini’ s early opener when he scored in the 66th minute , before Everton’ s Ademola Lookman put England 2-1 up 11 minutes later.
With two minutes left, Solanke buried a glorious strike from distance to confirm England ’ s place in Sunday’ s final against Venezuela, who edged Uruguay on penalties.
Neither side has reached the final before and for England , it will be first time they have played a World Cup decider since their 1966 victory in the senior edition .
Solanke and Lookman have been two of the stand – outs for England , who arrived without a victory in the tournament since 1997 – when Michael Owen scored in a 1- 0 win over Mexico .
In South Korea , the Young Lions beat Argentina and their Korean hosts in the group stage before knocking out Costa Rica and Mexico en route to the semis .
Venezuela have also enjoyed a charmed run, beating both Japan and the United States in extra time in the previous two rounds before Thursday ’ s dramatic win over Uruguay .
Venezuela were seconds from elimination when substitute Samuel Sosa curled in a stoppage – time free kick to take it to extra time at 1-1, after Nicolas De La Cruz’ s penalty on 49 minutes .
And in the eventual shoot -out it was De La Cruz who faltered when he saw his crucial shot saved, prompting joyous celebrations by the Venezuelan players.
Everton striker Lookman (19) Chelsea forward Solanke (19) , Liverpool winger Sheyi Ojo (19) , Tottenham Hotspur midfielder Josh Onomah ( 20) , Liverpool midfielder Ovie Ejaria (20 ) and Chelsea defender Fikayo Tomori , who are in the English squad for the South Korea tournament , have Nigerian roots.
Meanwhile , Paul Simpson claims to be the “ proudest Englishman in the world ” after guiding England to the FIFA U 20 World Cup final .
“ I thought it was a performance worthy of winning any game and to do it in the semi -final of the World Cup against a team like Italy is a really big achievement , ” Simpson told Sky Sports News HQ .
“ I don ’ t think there ’ s an Englishman anywhere in the world who ’ s as proud as I am . I ’ m delighted .
“ We were confident there was enough time ; if you ’ re going to concede a goal , conceding that early gives you plenty of time to get back into the game . We just had to stay calm and stick to the game plan , which we thought would be effective .
“ I thought for the full game – if you take away that little lapse in concentration and you have to give them credit because it was a wonderful finish – the players were magnificent, from the goalkeeper to those who came off the bench .
“ They kept their composure . We knew Italy set up to defend ; we knew if we could get crosses into the box we would cause problems and we knew if we could get things going across the six -yard box, the goalkeeper wasn’ t dominant at collecting the ball .”
