The 26th All Japan Ladies Football Tournament opens on 20 March at Susono Ground of Tokinosumika Sports Centre in Susono city, Shizuoka prefecture. This event is for ladies over 30 years of age to promote women’s football as life-long sporting activity. Teams that have qualified for this competition will come from all over Japan and will compete in this  3 day tournament. Prior to the start of this tournament, this article is reviewing last year’s tournament.

16 teams qualified from all over Japan for the previous year’s tournament and they had very intensive matches. The first preliminary round had 4 groups consisting of 4 teams, and Nagano Friends (Kitashinetsu/Nagano), Azure Hyogo (Kansai 3/ Hyogo), Kodaira Soccer Club (Kanto3/Tokyo、HABATAKE (Hokkaido) moved on to the next tournament stage as top team of each group.

The first tournament match, which was technically a semi-final, was between Kodaira Soccer Club and HABATAKE. Kodaira beat HABATAKE 3-0 thanks to hat trick of SAKASHITA Ami. On the other hand, the match between Nagano Friends and Azure Hyogo didn’t move very much due to consistent defense of both teams. On 31 minutes, Hyogo’s IZUMI Noriko scored the only goal and the team kept its strong defense which moved them on to the final.

On the last day of the tournament, Azure Hyogo and Kodaira Soccer Club played in the final of the tournament. Hyogo had pride in the fact they had not any goals scored against them up until this final, and Kodaira who had only conceded 1 goal so far confronted each other. Hyogo had a former national squad team captain IKEDA Hiromi and she proved to be a key player to form a detailed offensive style from behind to attack the opponent’s goal. Kodaira on the other hand also made effort to score by moving the ball to FW SAKASHITA, but could not get any goals.

At the end of the match, both teams had some chances but could not score. They also could not break the game deadlock in extra time. Eventually, in the penalty shootout, GK NISHIDA Yoko blocked 2 shots and Hyogo beat Kodaira with 6-5, getting the victory for the 5th time - 5 years since their last tournament win. NISHIDA, who was crucial player of the team, said, “This time I enjoyed talking with some rival players whom I never wanted to talk to before. It was good to communicate with them with lot of experiences at this age.” She enjoyed not only the victory of the tournament but also having a joyful communication with the other players through football.

The 26th All Japan Ladies Football Tournament

Fri. 20 March 2015 - Sun .22 March 2015
Tokinosumika Sports Center Susono Ground/ Sizuoka Susono
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