Although the previous day was designed to remove fatigue from the three matches in Portugal and the trip to Hungary, the second day of the activity became physically intensive to tune up their condition toward the match against Hungary. 

The morning session centred on physical trainings including drills for FPs to run between cones and to run from one penalty box and to another to fire shots to both goals, all of which aimed to get their heart rate up by keeping an intensive run. Goalkeepers tried saving continuous shots from different distances, which was also physically intensive. While all the players breathed hard, they were spontaneously saying aloud, “Come on! Come on!” or “Matches will be easier after this hard one!” to motivate themselves.

After having lunch and taking an enough rest, they had a meeting and then went for the afternoon training. The head coach Marcelo gave a talk regarding adjustments of further details along with watching the match against Portugal. Particularly, they discussed kick-off patterns to have more variations and then tried them in the game-style training afterwards. 

European countries have a long day in this season as the sun goes down in the lake past 8 pm and the sky grows red. The training session finished having the beautiful sunset on their back. Players seemed to be very tired but showed a sense of fulfilment on their face.

Player Comments

ODA Hirofumi (TOKYO LEQUIOS BS)
Because the morning session on the second day in Hungary was a physical training to improve our conditioning toward the next match, we paid attention to our heart rate during the shooting practice. I found we needed to improve our shot strength and shot accuracy in the midst of fatigue. Because we will have such kind of occasions in matches, I think it’s important to keep that in mind. In the afternoon, we had an intrasquad game focusing on kick-offs and set pieces. It goes without saying that we fight against each other because it’s a battle. But in real matches we try to communicate, exchange our ideas and show our good performance. I look forward to seeing what kind of plays are going to come out when those get combined well. We all try our best looking forward to showing them to our fans.

OBA Takaaki  DORSOLE KITAKYUSHU
After moving from Portugal to Hungary, we mainly had physical trainings in the morning and strategic trainings like a real match in the afternoon for the match against Hungary. During the match in the afternoon, I felt our team have been improving as players actively communicate with each other to embody the Marcelo’s tactics. For me, this is the first international tour on the national team. I want to show my strengths and stick on the result against Hungary.

Schedule

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