U-22 Japan National Team short-listed squad, who are in the middle of preparation for the Olympic qualifiers’ final round to be held in coming January, had a practice match against Shonan Bellmare on 26 November. The audience of approximately 5,000 gathered at the main stand of Shonan BMW Stadium Hiratsuka to get a glimpse of their local club Shonan Bellmare and young samurais.

U-22 Japan National Team short-listed squad employed the 4-2-3-1 formation to start off the match, but Shonan Bellmare and their vertically-quick football took the initiative. Japan’s midfielder NAKAJIMA Shoya and NOTSUDA Gakuto shot from mid-range in the sixth and seventh minutes respectively, but the opposing goalkeeper denied them.

In the 27th minute, Bellmare broke down Japan’s left flank for an opening goal with their own mid-range shot. A minute later, Japan’s forward ONAIWU Ado attempted his mid-range shot but it hit off the post. In the 30th minute, it was Shonan’s free-kick that directly threatened Japan before goalkeeper KUSHIBIKI Masatoshi made a superb save. The match went on as being fairly close from then on. Although the duo of Onaiwu and Nakajima created multiple chances, but the first half ended with Japan trailing by one goal.

Japan’s defence, which struggled to contain Shonan’s speed and combinations, regained its poise in the second half by changing the formation to the 4-3-3 late in the first half. Then in the 56th minute, after subbing in forward KAMADA Daichi and midfielder ITO Junya, Japan’s attacking collectiveness improved and created a crucial goal-scoring opportunity.

In the 77th minute, the lone striker up front Kamada came down and passed it to Ito on the side. Ito fired a fierce strike only to find it hit the crossbar. At five minutes remaining in the match, Japan sent forward SUZUKI Musashi onto the pitch, who just right-footed an equalizer in the 88th minute, minutes before the match ended as a 1-1 tie.

As coach TEGURAMORI Makoto expected on the previous day, the match saw repeated speedy attacks from both sides. There were many positive and negative takeaways both offensively and defensively for Japan’s young squad, which made the training match very productive preliminary drill looking ahead the final qualifiers.

U-22 Japan National Team short-listed squad have certainly been improving overall and acquiring depth for the Olympic qualifiers’ final round to be held in January, 2016. With the trip to Qatar getting underway on 6 December, the squad will be trimmed down to the final 23-man roster. The competition to make the team is far from easy for the players.

Coach Comment

TEGURAMORI Makoto, Coach
Throughout this match, I was able to see that our vision had been understood better by our players. Speaking of the defence in the first half, our frontline and backline were too far from each other and we had to play the football our opponents wanted to play. That resulted in the goal against.

Then we made a rational decision and changed it to the 4-3-3, and that made the distance between ourselves got better. That made the distance we had to move up for after we got the ball longer than before, but we could have more opportunities to attack behind their defenders than we had in the first half. Ideally, our players have got to find out by themselves the fact that we are too far from each other.  

Then they have got to make changes by themselves, for example lower the line or make the distance between units shorter. If the defensive organisation goes wrong, that will make us unstable and the way we lose the ball gets worse. We hadn’t used the 4-3-3 for a while, but today I confirmed that we can do both 4-3-3 and 4-2-3-1, and we let others see our capability. I think that it proves our players understand more now about the characteristics of this team. Shonan Bellmare possessed the vertical transition speed right after getting the ball, and that’s a trademark with some of the Middle Eastern countries as well. So today’s match turned out to be a good simulation.

JFA-TV (Japanese version only)

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