Pick-up Match

Riseisha High School　1-2 (1-0, 0-2)　Nagoya Grampus U18

The Prince Takamado Trophy U-18 Premier League WEST had its Matchday 16 on 22 November, and 8th placed Riseisha High School (Osaka) and 10th placed Nagoya Grampus U18 (Aichi) faced each other.

Both teams are competing to avoid relegation. Nagoya’s KAJIYAMA Kanta said "We desperately need 3 points by winning the next match."

At the beginning, the match didn’t move and both teams could not carry the ball to the goals. The opener came about from a set-play; in the 10th minute, Riseisha dropped the ball from a left corner kick to the front of the goal, HAYASHI Daichi and NISHIMURA Mitsuaki moved the ball by heading and finally it found the net.

Nagoya had a chance to equalise in the 23rd minute with KITANO Seiya but he couldn’t score due to Riseisha’s consistent defence. They kept attacking with long passes and tried to create chances, but the 1st half ended without any goal for Nagoya.

Riseisha kept control of the game in the 2nd half. In the 63rd minute, MAKINO Kanta passed the ball to the opponent’s penalty area and TANAKA Shunta tried to make a shot, but it was blocked by the desperate defence of Nagoya’s KATO Naoki. Nagoya’s central midfielders gradually became to play in higher line. Kajiyama reflected it: "We could finally pick up loose balls in the 2nd half and got rhythm for our play."

Towards the end of the match, during the last 15 minutes, Nagoya started to attack Riseisha’s goal more and in the 79th minute, MORI Kota was crushed outside of the left penalty area that gave the team a free kick. Mori’s shot successfully found the net to equalise, and then he made a good combination with the substitute SUGITA Masahiro to attack the Riseisha’s goal. The shot was blocked by the goalkeeper and Nagoya got a corner kick.

They restarted the attack quickly and TANAKA Shouma headed the corner kick which found the net successfully. Nagoya got the victory coming from behind at the very end of the match and got the 3 precious points.

Coach and Players' Comments

HIRANO Naoki, Coach (Riseisha High School)
It is very painful that we gave them the 3 points. They are our rival in the fight against relegation and they are in the lower rank than us. We should have at least finished with a draw. We should have kept moving the ball calmly even though they equalised. We lost the ball making mistakes and made a long pass so blindly that lost the rhythm of our play. Staying in this Premier League gives a lot of lessons for the players and that makes them confident. To stay in this league, we will win the next match.

YASUDA Hiroto (Riseisha High School)
We have lost the match that we could have won. We could take control of the match until the last part of the match but we couldn’t score another goal – that was the big thing. Even though we couldn’t score, we could have saved our goal so it is very regrettable. I imagine the opponent team had stronger mentality to win today and clearly something is missing in ourselves. Our coach says "you really have to do your best to grow up", so from the next match we want to work hard to get the good chance.

TAKATA Tetsuya, Coach (Nagoya Grampus U18)
At the beginning, we were very careful considering the fact that we didn’t have 2 key players. I thought I didn’t pay much attention to this fact but I might have strong feeling that we didn’t want to be beaten. We expected that we would be stronger in fitness in the 2nd half, so I thought we could turn over the score in the end if we could equalise in the early part of the 2nd half. At this moment of time, we should win all 3 remaining matches and we have just won the first one. We will do our best to win next 2 matches.

KAJIYAMA Kanta (Nagoya Grampus U18)
Today we faced the match with strong mentality but it was difficult after the first goal made by the opponent. It was good that we could eventually score 2 goals in the last 10 minutes of the match, but we have to make most of what we learned today. There is a huge gap between the Premier League and the Prince League. As a team and as a player, we want to stay in the Premier League, to keep growing up. If we lose the next 2 games, we won’t be able to stay up, so we will do our best to get the victory as if this is a tournament competition.

Other Matches

Gamba Osaka Youth　4-0 (3-0, 1-0)　Sanfrecce Hiroshima F.C Youth
Oita Trinita U-18　2-1 (1-0, 1-1)　Higashi Fukuoka High School
Cerezo Osaka U-18　2-2 (2-0, 0-2)　Vissel Kobe U-18
Kyoto Tachibana High School　2-3 (0-1, 2-2)　Kyoto Sanga F.C. U-18

Gamba Osaka Youth (Osaka) in the lead struck three goals against Sanfrecce Hiroshima F.C Youth (Hiroshima) in the first half, and continued to attack in the second half, winning a sweeping victory. 

Oita Trinita U-18 (Oita), who met another Kyushu team, Higashi Fukuoka High School (Fukuoka), scored a goal each in the first and second half, earning three points with a victory.

Cerezo Osaka U-18 (Osaka), who is currently sitting in third place, played against Vissel Kobe U-18 (Hyogo). MARUOKA Satoru struck two goals and they went into the second half with a two-goal lead. However, they conceded two in the second half, and ended up with a draw.

Kyoto Sanga F.C. U-18 won the game between the two teams from Kyoto against Kyoto Tachibana High School by scoring three goals, starting with SHIMAMURA Takuya’s shot. 

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