Pickup Match

Kashiwa Reysol U-18　0-1(1st0-1,2nd0-0)Ryutsu Keizai University Kashiwa High School

There were two different styles of football battling against each other in a heated contest. Kashiwa Reysol U-18 (Chiba) has its deliberate offence based on short quick passes while the offence of Ryutsu Keizai University Kashia High School (Chiba) starts with the quick transition from their aggressive defence high in the opposition’s half.

RKU Kashiwa gained the pace of the game early in the match. They often intercepted the ball quickly and connected simple passes to the opposition’s half to finish their attacks with shots. At the 18th minute, a cross ball from the left led to a handling penalty by Kashiwa and a PK. Ogawa Ryoya calmly kicked it in for RKU Kashiwa’s first goal. Kashiwa started attacking back in the second half. As RKU Kashiwa started showing a sign of fatigue and losing their aggressiveness, Kashiwa started moving the ball beautifully and threatening RKU Kashiwa’s goal, by sometimes getting right near their goal area and also striking from a distance as well.

As RKU Kashiwa’s head coach Honda Yuichiro commented after the game “We didn’t run. They made us run”, RKU Kashiwa tenaciously defended its lead against Kashiwa’s passing offence. They never left Kashiwa players open in front of the goal and hustled to every loose ball. At last the match heard the game-ending whistle with the score remained unchanged. RKU Kashiwa managed to stay focused and held the opposition scoreless to win the “Kashiwa Derby”.

Comments from coaches and players

SHIMOTAIRA Takahiro,Head Coach （Kashiwa Reysol U-18）
I am happy that many people made a trip to the stadium. But I think maybe that took some of the focus away from our players starting even before the game. But late in the first half, we started regaining our composure. After that, we could play our usual style of “dominating football”. I think we will be able to fix how we start off the match. One of the other areas that we need to work on is how we break through the last line of the opposition defence. Not just simply kicking in a predictable cross ball, taking the ball far deep into their half can make it more difficult for them to defend. We will keep improving to be able to score, no matter whom we play against.

NAKAYAMA Yuta（Kashiwa Reysol U-18）
We as a team tried not to get caught in the atmosphere of the match. But actually we couldn’t move forward the ball, kept passing only in the back, and especially in the second half, we made a lot of errors. They are a very aggressive team, so we talked about staying calm and playing our style of football, but we couldn’t do it. So that’s why we lost. But as the match went on, we got used to their pressure. I think each one of us got better through this experience. In practice we will work on what we couldn’t do today and we will keep playing our style of football.

HONDA Yuichiro,Head Coach （Ryutsu Keizai University Kashiwa High School）
It could have been losing four or five goals. Football is fun because sometimes a match like this happens, but there really was that much of gap. I said to the players “Keep putting pressure on them as much as you can. Once we stop running, we will be done“. And it really happened. We ran out of gas. But even though that’s true, we played well in the first half, and in the second half we showed our perseverance. We are getting better at creating an outnumbering situation and breaking through the defence by pass-and-go. It’s good when we keep improving during the game. We still have a lot of room to improve.

OGAWA Ryoya（Ryutsu Keizai University Kashiwa High School）
They dominated the ball possession for a long period of time, and all we could do was to defend. It was a tough game. But considering that we had lost two goals in two straight matches, it’s big for us that we didn’t allow a goal and won. In the second half we allowed many critical moments to happen, but we kept our focus and could stop them at the last line of our defence. That was also a learning experience. I think what led to this win and three points are studying before the match how they kick in cross balls and being actually able to take care of them and our frontline consistently making efforts in defending.

Other Results

Aomori Yamada High School　2-2（1st2-0、2nd0-2）　 Ichiritsu Funabashi High School
Kashima Antlers Youth　2-0（1st0-0、2nd2-0）　 0-0(1st0-0､2nd0-0) Aomori Yamada High School
Consadole SapporoU-18　1-0（1st0-0、2nd1-0）　JFA Academy Fukushima
Shimizu S-Pulse Youth　3-0（1st1-0、2nd2-0）　Tokyo Verdi Youth

Aomori Yamada High School (Aomori) allowed Funabashi Municipal High School (Chiba) to tie the match in the second half and missed the first win of the season, even though leading by two goals in the second half. Kashima Antlers Youth (Ibaraki) held Mitsubishi Ryowa SC Youth (Tokyo) scoreless and won as Suzuki Ryoma and Hirado Taiki scored in the second half for Kashima. Consadole Sapporo (Hokkaido) recorded the first win of the season against JFA Academy Fukushima (Fukushima) with the match’s only goal by Hirakawa Motoki at 71st minute. Shimizu S-Pulse Youth (Shizuoka), as the only team in the league to start off the season with a two-game winning streak, extended it to three and stayed on top by beating Tokyo Verdy Youth (Tokyo) 3-0.