AFC U-16 Women's Championship Thailand 2017 First Match vs U-16 Australia Women's National Team
11 September 2017 (Mon) Kick-off 19:00(Local Time) Playing Time 90min. (45min.×2)
IPE Stadium（Chonburi, Thailand）

U-16 Japan Women's National Team　5-0（1-0, 4-0）U-16 Australia Women's National Team

Scores
5'　OSAWA Haruka（U-16 Japan Women's National Team）
48'　TOMIOKA Chihiro（U-16 Japan Women's National Team）
54'　TANAKA Tomoko（U-16 Japan Women's National Team）
71'　TANAKA Tomoko（U-16 Japan Women's National Team）
84'　KINOSHITA Momoka（U-16 Japan Women's National Team）

Starting Line-ups
GK：OHBA Shu
DF：TOMIOKA Chihiro, MATSUDA Shino, NAGAE Ibuki, YOSHIZUMI Warai
MF：ITO Sara, KINOSHITA Momoka, NAKAO Momo, KATO Momo
FW：OSAWA Haruka, TAKIZAWA Chise

Reserves
GK：YAMASHITA Rina, FUKUDA Shiori
DF：SHIBUYA Hana, ARAI Miyu, GOTO Wakaba
MF：NAKAE Moe, IWAI Ran, ISHIDA Chihiro, WATANABE Rin, YAMAMOTO Yuzuki
FW：TANAKA Tomoko, MOMONO Miyuka

Substitutions
HT　KATO Momo → TANAKA Tomoko
64分　NAKAO Momo → YAMAMOTO Yuzuki
84分　TOMIOKA Chihiro → SHIBUYA Hana

Match Report

Monday 11 September saw the opening match of the AFC U-16 Women’s Championship Thailand 2017 for the U-16 Japan Women’s National Team as they squared off against U-16 Australia. Filled with anticipation as the young Japanese squad aim for a place in the U-17 World Cup, the game kicked-off at 19:00.

U-16 Japan got off to an ideal start as they scored the opening goal just five minutes into the game. YOSHIZUMI Warai on the right flank sent in a fine cross that was directly fired in by OSAWA Haruka waiting right in front of the goal. Threatening chance continued after 12 minutes, when NAGAE Ibuki attempted to capitalise on the space behind the backline, but the ball was just out of reach for her teammate. Another moment of attacking flair came in the 33rd minute, as ITO Sara with some individual effort surged up pitch and struck a brilliant shot, but blazed it over the crossbar. Despite fashioning few more chances in the first half, Japan failed to stretch their lead and took a one-goal advantage at halftime.

The dynamics of the match did not change in the second half as the Japanese squad continued to threaten the Australian goal. After gaining a free kick in the 48th minute, TOMIOKA Chihiro converted this chance by directly scoring with composure and doubled the advantage for her side. The third goal came in on 54 minutes, as second-half substitute TANAKA Tomoko snatched a back pass and calmly slotted into the back of the net, before extending the lead to 3-0. 

Gaining momentum after a pair of goals just in the second half, the young Nadeshiko orchestrated few more chances in the remainder of the match. In the 60th minute, after finding herself in space down the left side, Ito delivered a neat cross to Osawa, but was ruled offside before attempting a shot. After 71 minutes, Tanaka found her second and fourth goal for the team by directly firing in a right cross with a header into the Australian net. The fifth and the last goal came in on 84 minutes, as KINOSHITA Momoka tapped in the deflection from the opposing goalkeeper. Japan grabbed a convincing 5-0 victory over the Asian rival and kicked-off their Asian campaign with an excellent start.

U-16 Japan are scheduled to play the second group-stage match against U-16 Bangladesh on Thursday 14 September at 19:00 Japan time.

Players' Comments

DF #2 TOMIOKA Chihiro (JFA Academy Fukushima)
Today we faced Australia in the first match of the tournament. We were a little nervous in the beginning, but we got off to a good start as we encouraged each other and made a good preparation for the game. However, towards the end of the first half, we gave away the initiative of the match as we started to make simple errors and our work-rate came down. Not allowing the opponent in possession of the ball to increase the number of passing choices and keeping the quality of play for the entire match are some of the areas that I felt we need to work on as well. I am happy that we won the opening match, but we still have plenty more games to come. We are looking to improve team chemistry as we compete in every game of the tournament and go all out to win the match against Bangladesh by displaying our style of football as well.

DF #5 MATSUDA Shino (Nippon TV Menina)
We were a little nervous as this was the first match of the tournament and entered the game by thinking ‘we are going to give it all we got’. I believe that we had the early initiative of the game by scoring the opener. In the latter part of the first half, we allowed the opponents to have better possession of the ball and could not play at our own rhythm, but still managed to keep them from scoring. In the second half, after we tallied a number of goals, we could not keep up our concentration when we were attempting to break down their defence. Looking back at the entire game, at times we were not on the same page when we were executing attacking plays. In addition, we were not exactly sure where we were trying to rob the ball as well. I believe that those are some of the areas that we need to work on. We will talk this over in the next two days we have before the next match and try to coordinate our efforts on the pitch.

FW #22 YOSHIZUMI Warai (Cerezo Osaka Sakai Girls)
As this was the first match of the tournament, we were quite nervous when we entered the game. We got off to a good start by scoring early. However, we gave away the initiative to the opponents towards the end of first half and I felt that we need to keep our level of play up for the entire match as well. We will work hard in order to play at our own pace until the end of the game in the upcoming Bangladesh match.

Schedule

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

AFC U-16 Women’s Championship Thailand 2017

Tournament Period: 10 September 2017 (Sun.) ～ 23 September 2017(Sat.)
※Top three teams qualify for FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup Uruguay 2018
For more information on AFC Championship