Nadeshiko Japan, Japan Women’s National Team, who are preparing for the FIFA Women’s World Cup Canada 2015, wrapped up its domestic camp in Kagawa on 26 May and moved to Nagano for the KIRIN CHALLENGE CUP 2015 against Italy Women’s National Team, which is their 2nd preparation match for the World Cup. 

In the morning, the team had some sessions for 1.5 hours such as shooting exercises from pass and building up play, and then the players who didn’t have much chance to play in the previous match had a mini-game to check strategies. In Kagawa, many local people visited the camp and watched the team’s training sessions. In the afternoon, the team left Kagawa where they got a lot of warm support and then headed to Nagano, where it is bit colder, spending 5 hours travel time.

The match against Italy as the “KIRIN CHALLENGE CUP 2015”, which will be held in Minami-Nagano Sports Park stadium, is the last international match before the FIFA Women’s World Cup. Nadeshiko Japan will have an official training session in the stadium to get ready for the match.

Players’ Comments

MF #10   SAWA Homare (INAC Kobe)
The camp in Kagawa was very effective for us; we had a lot of sessions spending whole days training and we played against teams of high school students and university students with speed, height and physical strengths. The weather was really hot and it was good for us to strengthen ourselves since we have to be strong enough to keep running throughout the 90 minutes in hot weather. Today, we paid extra attention to how we build-up our play which has been our issue. We still have things to improve more in moving the ball round such as strength of pass, angle and speed. 

DF #3   IWASHIMIZU Azusa (Nippon TV Beleza)
In Kagawa, the weather was good and many people supported us both in our everyday trainings and during our match. We got very warm support and it was definitely a good training camp for us. We had discussed a lot before the match against New Zealand on 24th and it was a good match for us because we could find issues to correct in a positive way. In the match, we had times that we couldn’t move the ball round well because of a tiny bit of gap between teammates, so today we tried to improve our communication in the training. We haven’t played against Italy much in the past; it will be the precious experience for us to play against the team like Italy whom we don’t really have much information nor data. We have only a few weeks to the World Cup, so we just want to do as much as possible in each days training sessions. 

FW #17   OGIMI Yuki (VfL Wolfsburg/Germany)
I feel our level has been improved compared to the time of FPF Algarve Cup in March. Four years ago, I was very much eager for the World Cup, but this time I can be more relaxed and join in the camp as if it is my usual camp training. For the KIRIN CHALLENGE CUP 2015, I just want to play better both in defense and offense than the previous match against New Zealand. In offense, we want to make a good flow of building up play leading to us scoring. 

KIRIN CHALLENGE CUP 2015

Nadeshiko Japan(Japan Women's National Team)  vs. Italy Women’s National Team
Thu. 28 May    Kickoff 19:20 (subject to change)
Nagano / MINAMI NAGANO SPORTSPARK
Ticket Information (Japanese version only)

Shuttle bus information
Access information (Japanese version only)

FIFA Women’s World Cup Canada 2015

Information