The 39th Japan U-12 Football Championship will begin its matches on Saturday 26 December at multiple fields in Kagoshima Prefecture, as its opening ceremony is to be held on the day before. The total of 48 teams, consisting of 47 teams qualified all over the nation and one more team from Osaka which is the home prefecture of the last champions, will play against each other to reach the final to be held on 29. This article is to briefly review the last year’s tournament as this year’s is coming up in a few days.

The 38th championship took place from 4 to 6 August last year in Shizuoka. The 48 teams were separated into the 12 groups of four teams to play the round-robin first round. The top two teams in each group advanced to the second round which allocate the surviving teams into 8 groups of three for another round-robin contests. Finally each group’s top team went on to the final knockout round.

After all the hard-fought early rounds, the elite eight teams standing were Yokogawa Musashino Football Club Jr (Tokyo), Sanfrecce Hiroshima F.C Jr. (Hiroshima), Cerezo Osaka U-12 (Osaka), Square Toyama FC U-12 (Toyama), Regista FC (Saitama), Kashima Antlers Tsukuba Jr. (Ibaraki), JFC FUTURO (Kanagawa), and Kashiwa Reysol U-12 (Chiba). And the quarter-finals saw Yokogawa Musashino, Cerezo Osaka, Regista and Kashiwa come out victoriously.

The first semi-final was between Yokogawa Musashino and Cerezo Osaka. KAWAKAMI Koutatsu’s opening goal put Cerezo Osaka ahead early. HAYASHI Sanemi in the 12th minute and YOSHIDA Yuji six minutes after that added one goal each to help Cerezo past Yokogawa Musashino to the 3-0 finish and to the final match. 

The second fixture was Regista against Kashiwa. Kashiwa edged Regista with goals by NAKAJIMA Shun and TAMURA Soki for the 2-1 win. 

There were strong wills out of both teams’ players shown everywhere on the pitch in the final between Kashiwa and Cerezo Osaka. Kashiwa took the lead first in the contest worth deciding the national champions, when a beautiful vertical pass produced the opening goal.

Cerezo Osaka did not back down. One minute after they allowed the first goal, YOSHIDA struck back to get his team back on level terms. Without seeing any more goal, the contest went into the additional period, which eventually ended scoreless. They had nothing more but to let the penalty shootout decide the outcome.

Cerezo Osaka’s goalkeeper KANBAYASHI Go stopped two Kashiwa attempts, while Cerezo had two of their kickers make sure not to waste their keeper’s superb performance and won the shootout 2-1. Despite ending up with being runners-up, Kashiwa won the Fighting-Spirit Award and the Most Impressive Team Award. It was refreshing to see both teams embracing each other and their performance after the match. 

As this year’s tournament is held in winter, the matches are expected to be as heated as ever. Please make a visit to match venues to witness the battles of young players. 

The 39th Japan U-12 Football Championship

Duration: Sat. 26 December - Tue. 29 December
Venue:
1st round/Round 16   Kagoshima Fureai Sports Land (Kagoshima)
Quarter-Final   Kagoshima Kamoike Auxiliary Field (Kagoshima)
Semi-Final/Final   Kagoshima Kamoike Athletic Stadium (Kagoshima)
More information