The Asian Games, Asia’s biggest sporting event held once every four years, will take place in Incheon, Korea from Friday 19 September to Saturday 4 October.
Football competitions kick off on Sunday 14th ahead of the opening ceremony on 19th　because it has too many matches to play in the regular period. The defending champions Japan face Kuwait in the first match on 14th. By starting the completion with a win, Japan National U-21 Team look to be a spearhead to create momentum not only for themselves but also the whole Japan delegation.

Japan U-21 team launched their training camp on 8th in Chiba.
For Japan who clinched their first gold medal in the last Asian Games, the tourney itself remains to be very important, but the real targets for the youngsters are the Rio 2016 Olympics and the 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia.
In a drizzling rain, they started their work, divided into two groups. Players who played matches yesterday took up lighter workout, jogging and recovery drills. Others worked harder on drills using balls, including passing and heading practices in a little over an hour.

Head Coach Comment

TEGURAMORI Makoto, Japan National U-21Team Head Coach
(On what he told players before the practice) I told players “don’t be just satisfied with the fact you are called up for the national team. There are some peers who weren’t selected. Understand you carry the expectation of your fellow countrymen on your shoulders including such players.”
(On the first training) we calculated each player’s playing time in the recent month. And some teams had J2 matches, and others had the Emperor’s Cup or the Nabisco Cup. When we checked up their conditions, we found there were some differences. So we divided them into two groups who need to recover and who need to work on training.

Players Comments

NIEKAWA Ayumi　(Jubilo Iwata)
We are contending for the back-to-back title, and as an individual I want to make it the first step to grow. In that sense, this tournament is very important. We’ll get a good result and hopefully it leads to our future.

MUROYA Sei (Meiji University)
We won the last tournament, so we will try for another win. At the same time, personally I will get well-prepared to play on the starting lineup and then try to stick to results to record assists and goals.

Schedule

17th Asian Games （2014/Incheon）Groups