The 24th Vermont Cup All Japan U-12 Futsal Championship started on Sunday 4 January. Approximately 3500 teams applied for this championship and 48 teams, who got through the prefectural qualifying round, came to the Komazawa Olympic Park General Sport Ground Gymnasium in Tokyo. At the opening ceremony Oka Sora, the captain of azzurro WAKAYAMA FUTSAL CLUB, made the following pledge for fair play in summary.

‘I’m grateful to everyone who supports us. Dreams – we can make an effort, thanks to our dreams. Challenges – we never give up from the beginning, but try and act without fear of the failure. Gratefulness – never take things for granted, and always be grateful. I care about those three words. We, all the players, pledge to compete openly and fairly, bearing respect in mind.’

After the opening ceremony, ten of the former national team players and F-League players came to join as guests, and had an exhibition match against a participating team. The participating players experienced high-level plays and showed off their own skills before the big matches. Then they divided into 12 groups of four teams and there were 48 league games at two stadiums, Komazawa Gymnasium and Ota-City General Gymnasium. Each team had two games in the first round.

Kashima Antlers Tsukuba Junior (Ibaraki) in Group E showed their overwhelming strength on the first day. They crushed Nakahara SCF (Kumamoto) 15-0 and defeated Courage Hiroshima (Hiroshima) 10-0. Kimura Masashi, the head coach, noted: ‘both the team and the individuals improved so much after becoming quarter-finalists in the Japan U-12 Football Championship last summer. Each player desires strongly to win this championship.’ The team showed their strong stack with six goals from Sasanuma Koki, five scores from Maeda Sora, and another five from Koda Soshi. They also kept a clean sheet, showing their solid defence. Avanzare Sendai SC (Sendai) in the same group also won consecutive matches, and they will meet on 5 January to decide who will top the group.

Tsu Rapid FC (Mie), who won their opening match 10-3 against Takaoka Junior Football Club (Kochi), was defeated by Kaetsu Livent (Niigata) 5-2. Seko Kazumasa, the head coach, commented after the match: ‘the players tend to be affected whether they can strike the opener or not.’ Just as he said, the mental aspect of the players seemed to decide the match. On the other hand, there were some players, who built up positive momentum for them and scored many goals. Hirakawa Kento from Oita Trinita Junior (Oita) scored seven goals in their first match and struck eight goals in two games. Omori Ryo from BRINCAR FC (Aichi) scored a hat trick in two consecutive matches and scored seven goals in total. We cannot take our eyes off their scoring.

The last match of the first round will be held on the second day of the championship on Monday 5 January and 16 teams will advance to the final round on the same day. As the competition for the wild card has become more exciting, you cannot miss the final match in the first round. Which team will get though to the final round and become the quarter-finalist on Tuesday 6 January?

Match Detail

Comments

SEKO Kazumasa, Head Coach of Tsu Rapid FC
The players couldn’t show their real game and we lost our second match against Kaetsu Livent. Before the championship, I told the players to ‘stay competitive’ in order to show their gratitude for people who have supported them. It doesn’t just mean winning or losing, but it includes one-on-ones on the pitch and those moments when the players are at a numerical disadvantage. If winning the games comes with it, that’d be perfect. Although now we can’t top the group, we’d like to do our best and win the last match to get through to the next stage.

KUWANO Kenji, Head Coach of Dream FC
We won a match and drew the other. They were good games in which the players showed what they’ve been practicing. In the match against malva chiba fc, we closed the gap from two goals to level the game in the last 25 seconds. I’m pleased they showed the never give-up spirit and continued to attack in the big match, as we always bear this in mind for any match. We practice futsal, so that we can control the ball well in the penalty area. The players enjoyed themselves in a serious way.

MAEDA Sora (Kashima Antlers Tsukuba Junior)
It was really good having scored goal for the team. This is the last championship for this team to take part, not that everyone will be promoted to junior youth team, and I am quite determined to face the other side as a player and a team as well. And we trained very hard this year for “Changing Antlers Tsukuba history.” After we qualified for the national championship, we had been holding training for sharing the objective and feeling. As a result, I think we are beginning to adjust positioning and play which will help extracting other players’ strengths.

HASEGAWA Tomozo, Head Coach (Tomozo Soccer Club)
As I was always talking to the team Tochigi is not the region for high-tier teams and “you cannot win the game in the national championship if you satisfy with the prefectural qualifiers. “And I am quite happy about winning two straight games. All the players in our team had been together playing around since kindergarten or first year student of elementary school, I am sure our teamwork is next to none. I set up training to give them skills and thinking applicable to be a professional player. First of all, I hope we can extend winning streak to three and get a good result on this event and I want to raise standard of women’s youth football in Tochigi by clinching the national title.

JFA-TV

Vermont Cup 24th All Japan U-12 Futsal Championship

Sun. 4 January to Tue. 6 January 2015
Komazawa Olympic Park General Sport Ground Gymnasium, Ota-city General Gymnasium/Tokyo

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