The Japan Football Association held a draw for the 21st All Japan Futsal Championship on 5 February.

At the draw, JFA president DAINI Kuniya, F.League COO MATSUZAKI Yasuhiro, F.League assistant COO KITAZAWA Tsuyoshi and former Japan Futsal National Team player SAGANE Kiyoshi were at the podium.

"Through this tournament, Japan's futsal is gaining more popularity and because of the population is becoming bigger, the level is developing year in and year out. And it displays a lot of high-quality games and it's called “the Emperor's Cup of futsal”,'' Daini said. "NAGOYA OCEANS completed a first-ever three-peat last year and they have shown overwhelming strengths having won in the F League for nine years in a row. But we have a little hope that someone else beat them."

A total of 26 teams – 12 F.League clubs and 14 teams that qualified through regional qualifying – will compete in this tournament. In the first round, 10 F.League clubs, excluding NAGOYA OCEANS and PESCADOLA MACHIDA, who are seeded due to the F.League standings, and 14 teams that represent their regions, will be divided into six groups, and meet at ECOPA Arena (Shizuoka Prefecture), Fumin Kyosai Super Arena (Osaka Prefecture) and Green Arena KOBE (Hyogo Prefecture). The first-place teams in each group will advance to the final round at National Yoyogi Stadium First Gymnasium in Tokyo, which will be held between 11 and 13 March.

At the draw, they first determined which groups the 10 F.League teams would get in, and then allocated the other regional representative teams. In the end, they had drawing for the final round to have the entire matching. "In Group B, D, E, and F, there are two F League teams each and it makes the competitions tougher in those, but in group A, a pair of teams who compete in the F Challenge League in TOKUSHIMA RAPAZ and KASHIWA TOR'82 will play, so we shall have our eyes there too," Matsuzaki said.

As the matching have been set now, each team will gear up in their training even more for the first round. "In futsal, strategic scouting is very important," Sagane said. "I think that the regional teams will be eager trying to defeat the F.League teams, and the F.League teams will take on them thinking they couldn't afford to lose. So they're expected to put up keen battles." As he mentioned, it will be one of the focal points to see as to which lower-ranked teams could have upsets in this tournament.

Which team will hold up the JFA championship cup, earning the fame of the best team in Japan, in the end? The championship will get underway in a month.

Here's how the draw was held (Japanese version only)

The 21st All Japan Futsal Championship

1st Round   Fri. 4 March – Sun. 6 March 2016
Shizuoka/ECOPA Arena, Osaka/Fumin Kyosai Super Arena, Hyogo/Green Arena KOBE

Final Round   Fri. 11 March – Sun. 13 March 2016
Tokyo/National Yoyogi Stadium First Gymnasium

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