U-18 Japan National Team short-listed squad started their training camp in Ichihara, Chiba. This is for the AFC U-19 Championship 2016 which will be held in October, 2016. For the first day, the team had two training sessions in both the morning and the afternoon and they had key themes for both training sessions: morning was for offence and afternoon was for the defence sessions.

Since there are many new players who were short-listed for the first time, the team’s Coach UCHIYAMA interrupted the sessions to explain the team’s tactics. He strengthened the importance of choosing what to do by observing the situations such as the ball’s flow, teammates’ play, and opponent’s play. In this camp, the team will have two practice matches which are against Nippon Sport Science University on 9th and against Ryutsu Keizai University on 10th.

Players' Comments

SUZUKI Tokuma (University of Tsukuba)
I’m very happy to join in this training camp. It is a short camp of only 3 days, but we want to make the camp high quality, communicating amongst the players well. We also have practice matches so we want to make good results. Please keep supporting us.

KOJIMA Masaya (Vegalta Sendai Youth)
I was nervous to be selected for the first time as the U-18 Japan National Team short-listed squad, but I am just happy to be a part of the camp. I will do my best to understand the team’s tactics and to show my advantages. There are many things that I can learn here, so I want to watch various good plays and hopefully the camp will be very fruitful.

KAKITA Yuki (Kashima Antlers Youth)
I am happy to take part in this camp. I have been able to communicate with my teammates both on and off of the pitch. In the afternoon, we had practice for defence and the training stuff pointed out what I used to think before; I thought that there are different points of view. I studied a lot and it was a good but long day. I hope that I can learn a lot more.

SATO Ryo (F.C. Tokyo U-18)
It is my first time to be chosen as a short-listed squad player. Japan National Team has been my dream and my purpose. I feel that all of my dedication and effort I have made in my local team has finally been rewarded. However, this is also the start so I will keep working hard to show my advantages and to stay in the squad. I would like to find out what to improve and what I have done well so far in the squad team. To develop myself in this camp, I will do my best during the rest of the training sessions and in the training matches.

Schedule

*The schedule is subject to change.