Pick Up Match

Akita L.F.C. Youth 1-4 (First Half 0-2, Second Half 1-2) FC VICTORIES

The 19th All Japan Women’s Youth (U-15) Championship presented by NIKE finally started on Saturday 26 July in Sakai, Osaka. The 32 teams, which survived the regional qualifying rounds, play in the knockout stage for the chance to become the best secondary school team in Japan.
The first match was FC VICTORIES (Hyogo), who topped the Kansai qualifying round, against Akita L.F.C. Youth (Tohoku 3/Akita), who play in this competition for the fifth time, hoping to win their first game. Although FC VICTORIES lead the game from the beginning, their two pacey forwards could not do their jobs against Akita’s solid defence. Hasegawa Kei, the head coach of FC VICTORIES, later noted: ‘it wasn’t good at all. They needed to run a lot more.’ Even so, they had scoring opportunities with counterattacks from the both sides. Then after eight minutes, TOMINAMI Chisato received a cross from TSUTSUI Akina from the right wing and struck the opener. In the 19th minute, ENDO Sakura scored with a lob shot, building a two-goal lead. FC VICTORIES’s defence played well under pressure and kept a clean sheet until the end of the first half.

Akita started their fight-back with counterattacks in the second half. SATO Kaho later commented: ‘we couldn’t play our style against FC VICTORIES, a stronger team than us.’ After 39 minutes, TAKEDA Nanako was free to score and closed the gap to one goal. However, in the 40th minute, NISHIYAMA Satsuki slotted the ball into the goal, building a two-goal lead again. After that, FC VICTORIES generally pressed Akita until the end. In additional time, just before the final whistle, DOHI Ayako, who came off the bench, scored their fourth goal. FC VICTORIES won the game 4-1 and advanced to the second match.
Details of the match can be found here.

Match Report

Comments

KUMAGAI  Head Coach(Akita L.F.C. Youth)
We found it difficult to practice enough in Tohoku due to the snow and we haven’t got a good result yet. As I don’t want to use the snow as an excuse, we went to other prefectures to play games in winter so that we could practice as much as other teams. We wanted to win one game in this competition. So we’re very disappointed today. I think the players did well, though.

SATO Kaho (Akita L.F.C. Youth)
Two years ago, we were beaten by a big margin in this championship. We were asked to win the match today by those old girls and I really wanted to win as well. So I’m gutted. Having said that, we scored the earliest goal in a game in our five-time experience of this championship. Taking the confidence we got in this match, we’ll try harder next time.

HASEGAWA Head coach (FC VICTORIES)
We have many experienced players in our team, as we have participated in this competition for three years running. Although I thought: ‘this year’s good’, we were struggling in the heat. We were defeated by teams from Kanto area in the semifinal and the third-place playoff of the All Japan Women’s Youth Championship in January. So we’re aiming at defeating Kanto teams this time. I look forward to our second match against NTV Menina Serias (Kanto 2/Tokyo).

NISHIYAMA Satsuki, (FC VICTORIES)
We couldn’t build up positive momentum after the opener. Somehow we did so after conceding one goal and became more vocal, playing as a united team. We’d like to continue that in our next match. Sometimes we are told off in practice a session, which is supposed to be good, as there is a saying in FC VICTORIES: ‘being told off means you can be better.’ I managed to come this far, thinking being told off is to be expected.

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