On Thursday 7 January, the two semi-final contests were held in the 24th All Japan High School Women's Football Championship at Noevir Stadium in Kobe to determine this year’s two finalists.

Semi-Final  1st Match

Daisho Gakuen High School (Kansai 1/Osaka)　1-3 (1-2, 0-1)　Fujieda Junshin High School (Tokai 1/Shizuoka)

Daisho Gakuen High School gained their momentum early. They furiously kept attacking forward and playing in the Fujieda Junshin High School’s end. The opening goal, however, was scored by Fujieda Junshin. Before that, they had almost no chance for attacks, but in the 25th minute, they succeeded in getting the ball in the opposing end and connected it eventually to KONO Fuka. She did not show any hesitation in firing it and made it to open the scoring for her side. Six minutes later, after putting pressure on Daisho Gakuen’s defenders, Fujieda obtained a corner-kick opportunity, which was headed home by KUROSAKI Yuka to widen the lead to two goals.

Daisho Gakuen, who had allowed two goals only with three shot attempts, subbed in more offensive players and cut the deficit to one before the first half ended. In the second half, Daisho Gakuen earned a penalty kick, but their effort was denied by Fujieda Junshin’s goalkeeper FUKUTA Mai. Then the flow of the match shifted. Fujieda Junshin started getting accustomed to Daisho Gakuen’s defensive pressure, grabbed their own rhythm, and finally had Kono meet a through ball from her teammate to score her team’s third goal as she tangled with the opposing goalkeeper. In the end, by defeating Daisho Gakuen 3-1, Fujieda Junshin clinched one of the two spots in the final for the first time in two years. 

Match details (Japanese version only)

Semi-Final 2nd Match

Shutoku Senior High School (Kanto 2/Tokyo)　0-2 (0-2, 0-0)　Kamimura Gakuen High School (Kyushu 1/Kagoshima)

In the other match of the semi-finals, Shutoku Senior High School attempted to take early initiative with their intense pressure on the ball. Kamimura Gakuen High School, however, had their trademark weapon, set-pieces, which had shown great success in this tournament as well. In the 21st minute, HASHITANI Suguri at the far side headed the kick from the left into the back of the net for the opener. Then two minutes later, Hashitani tallied another goal again from a corner-kick. She ran into the scramble to meet the ball from the right side, opposite from the previous one, and jump-volleyed it to the goal with her right foot.

Shutoku, two goals behind, could not show any signs of resurgence against Kamimura Gakuen who defensively continued predicting and reacting effectively to Shutoku’s long feeds. Shutoku were often a step or two slow on the ball and could not outrun Kamimura players in the stamina department, which left them struggling for a long stretch. Individual penetration attempts were too ineffective to break down Kamimura’ s defence as well. With neither side making any substation except in the additional time, the total 22 players ran around hard to their limit until the match ended with the score unchanged. Now Kamimura advance to the final for the first time in three years.  

Sunday 10 January has the tournament’s last day where Fujieda Junshin and Kamimura Gakuen go head to head at Noevir Stadium Kobe for the national championship title. 

Match details (Japanese version only)

Coach and Players' Comments

OKAHISA Sho (Daisho Gakuen High School)
We started it off okay early in the match, but we allowed multiple goals, and my players started to feel scared when connecting passes. We couldn’t show even 70% of what we are really able to do, and I think that’s because our mental toughness needs improvement. We need to maintain our composure even when we are in an unfavourable stretch. In order to do that, we need to raise the level of “our normal standard”. Many of our third graders will keep playing football, so I want them to become stronger. I want our first graders and second graders to find some lesson in this loss, and I want them to make themselves stronger as well.

KONO Fuka (Fujieda Junshin High School)
The most important thing for a forward is to score goals. On the first goal, I fired it because I could see the goal in my eyesight. When I shot it, I thought it might be too week. But I am glad that it went in. I have been able to score goals in every match we played in this tournament. My goal is to score at least one per match. I want to keep scoring to help my team win more easily. During the half time, we said to each other “we lost in the semi-final last year. We don’t want to end up like that anymore. So let’s go get goals.” Now that we are here, we want to get on the top no matter what, and we want to go home smiling. 

ARIGA Shigekazu (Shutoku Senior High School)
I think we didn’t have enough experience needed to win this one. Regardless of their name, (Kamimura Gakuen) were a kind of team we had never played against. We put ourselves in the hole and failed to create our momentum. Maybe we were nervous. We kept paying attention to their strength of set-pieces, but their corner-kicks were remarkably on point. 

HASHITANI Suguri (Kamimura Gakuen High School)
The first goal, they knew what we were trying to do, but we could score it anyway. That was good. The second goal, when I ran behind my teammate, the ball just came to me. Even though it is by accident, scoring a goal gives me confidence. Shutoku players were individually very strong, and we had some tough moments early in the match. But we came back anyway to create our own pace. In the final I think we can’t stop Fujieda Junshin from controlling the ball time to time, but we won’t change our game plan of putting pressure up front and take it to our own offence.

The 24th All Japan High School Women's Football Championship

Sun. 3 January 2016 - Sun. 10 January 2016
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