Japan Futsal National Team had an official practice session on 29 January at Osaka Municipal Central Gymnasium day before the second friendly meeting against Colombia. Coach Miguel RODRIGO, who is eager for straight wins, gets his hopes up for his players' readiness and playing accuracy improvement.

Despite allowing an early lead in the first match on 27 January, Japan showed aggressive moves on both offence and defence against Colombia, who reached the last four at the 2012 World Cup. Japan grabbed a 3-2 come-from-behind victory with MORIOKA Kaoru's brace.

Colombia are expected to come out in better form as the second match day will be their sixth day in Japan. The South Americans were showing sharp moves during the practice that was partly opened to media.

For Japan eyeing for the third straight title at the AFC Futsal Championship starting on 11 of next month and a spot for the FIFA Futsal World Cup Colombia 2016, the second fixture against Colombia is the last test at home.

"It's a big challenge to win two straight matches against the team who reached the last four at the World Cup. Colombia will put quite a bit of pressure on us to avoid defeats in a row," predict Miguel a tough match. And he also expects his team's improvement, "we've got to keep in form and improve accuracy of tactics and plays."

Japan coach adds, "we will think about the offence depending on how the opponents come, and if we can do what we should do on defence, we can cause trouble for even the top-level opponents. We need to be thorough." He pointed out the key of winning is the defence.

The team held an-hour short but focused training at the match site. In a game-style practice, the players worked on adjustments of moves in the first match and defence on opposing power plays and corner kicks as well as their own offensive moves.

NIBUYA Kazuhiro says, "to win the AFC Championship, we will practise to improve accuracy on what we made errors like combinations."

"Colombia have got individual skills and plenty of ideas," MUROTA Yuki says. "It's better to go to the AFC Championship with a win so that we can get momentum. And I don't want people to think our win in the first match was just lucky. We will win tomorrow and show Japan's true ability to the world."

The second international friendly against Colombia will kick off at 2:15 p.m. on 30 January.

Coach and Players' Comments

Miguel RODRIGO, Coach
It’s a big challenge for us to play against the World Cup’s semi-finalists twice with only two days in between and win both of them. It was not that Colombia didn’t play hard in the first match, and tomorrow they will play very aggressively to avoid two straight losses. It will be a touch match. We are planning to put high priority on defence just like we did in the first match, and play with good accuracy tactically.

In the last match, the playing time varied from a player to player, so I am planning not to put too much burden on specific players. Whoever gets on the pitch, we can maintain our intensity. Henmi (Katsutoshi Rafael) and Yoshikawa (Tomoki) both are showing the reasons why they are playing overseas, and the stability of our goalkeepers gives the team a great help. Tomorrow I am considering to make three sets of substitutions by two minutes, too. Everybody on the team is healthy and our conditioning is getting better on the right track toward the AFC Futsal Championship. We want to keep making it even better.

FP #10  NIBUYA Kazuhiro (VASAGEY OITA)
My physical condition has got better. We didn’t do much workout with the ball during our Nagoya camp, but through playing matches, our communication got better and the quality of us as a team has got better, as well. Colombia are a good team and they should be in a better shape than the first match. We will come out with the challenger mentality. Not only making good plays but also enjoying everything out there including the atmosphere of the pitch will help us get a win. We will do our best to finish it with good details as well as good results and to play a much better futsal match.

FP #3  MUROTA Yuki (ESPOLADA HOKKAIDO)
The intensity of our physical training during the camp got higher, and I was a little nervous because it was the first official match to play in a while. So because of all those things, I got tired faster than usual. But tomorrow I think I can play more relaxed. To stay on this national team, I want to keep showing my good traits such as dribbling and also good results, which is scoring goals. Our opponents this time is the semi-finalists of the World Cup. I personally haven’t played against many foreign teams, so this is a good experience and I am looking forward to it. Once we start off with our trademark, good defence, I think we can get on our good rhythm.

Osma Fonnegra, Coach (Colombia Futsal National Team)
We have pretty much got used to the time difference and fortunately we have no injured players. We are in good shape physically and mentally. We don’t look back what already happened, and we will play focused and try to make fewer mistakes than the last time. We want to show spectacular plays to fans in Osaka. The natural characteristics of our Colombia National Team is fun and easy-going both on and off the pitch, but we lacked that in the first match. We will go back to our dynamism and show our good style of futsal and show better performance than the last time. 

Schedule

*Local Time
*The schedule is subject to change due to the team condition, the weather, etc.

International Friendly Match

Japan Futsal National Team vs Colombia Futsal National Team
[ 2nd Match ] Saturday,30 January 2016 Kick Off at 14:15 (estimate time) 
Osaka/Osaka Municipal Central Gymnasium
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