The 2nd All Japan Youth (U-18) Futsal Championship is kicking off soon. This year, it will be for four days from 20 to 23 August in Xebio Arena Sendai and in the Sendai Gymnasium. This championship decides the Japan’s No. 1 futsal team of U-18 age group.

Espaco U-18 (Shizuoka) from Tokai area is one of the featured teams of Group A. In the semi final of the Tokai qualifying round, they beat the former No. 2 team of this All Japan Youth Futsal Championship Nagoya Oceans U-18 in a penalty shoot out 3-2, after they couldn’t make any additional goal from 5-5 within the given 30 minutes of the match.

Then they beat Mario Futsal School 8-3 to qualify for this national level championship. The team won the area qualifying competition of Tokai and played in the National U-18 Futsal Tournament 2013 which was held in the Ocean Arena. 

Group B, C, D has teams that have “Seiwa Gakuen” in their names. All of them are from Seiwa Gakuen High School in Miyagi. SC Seiwa Gakuen is joining as a Miyagi’s top team whereas FC Seiwa Gakuen is the winner of last year’s championship and the top team of Tohoku area. The players from the both teams usually play for Seiwa Gakuen Football Club which has 161 players.

Seiwa Gakuen Futsal Club is the No. 2 team of the mentioned competition in Tohoku and the team has 66 players concentrating on futsal. It will be interesting to see how these 3 teams play in each group. 

Kumiyama High School (Kansai 1/Kyoto), Sakuyou High School (Chugoku/ Okayama), Teikyo Nagaoka High School (Kitashinetsu/Niigata), Sanonichidai High School (Kanto 2/ Tochigi) are constantly strong football teams since they regularly play in U-18 national level competitions.

What we can check out is how much they can make the most of what they learned from football such as kills, speed and physical fitness in the narrower futsal courts. Another important tip to the victory is how much they can get familiar with futsal during these 4 days of the competition since futsal requires distinctive movement.

For the proper futsal teams such as P.S.T.C. Londrina U-18 (Kanto 1/ Kanagawa), a branch team of F. League’s Shonan Bellmare, and Clark Memorial International High School (Kansai 2/ Hyogo), they will have to defend against physical strengths and speedy plays which are trained in football to get the victory.

What they are expected to do is to keep moving distinctively in a Futsal way which is different from football in their set and power plays. 

One of the venues Xebio Arena has 4,009 seats with a centre multi display. This is one of the top Arenas of the world. For those who will compete for this championship, this should be the best venue to get the victory. Please come to the Xebio Arena and enjoy watching the heated-up futsal matches. 

The 2nd All Japan Youth (U-18) Futsal Tournament

Thu. 20 August – Sun. 23 August 2015
XEBIO ARENA SENDAI, Sendai City Gymnasium / Miyagi 
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