On Sunday 22 May, the following day of the Paraguay match, the U-23 Japan National Team worked out during their ongoing 44th Toulon Tournament run, starting at 10:30 (local time) in Toulon.

Before starting the training, the players and staff members gathered around coach TEGURAMORI Makoto and made a circle. "Today we are trying to recover from yesterday and making a preparation for tomorrow." Japan boss Teguramori said. "If we look closer at the details and improve them, we can go neck and neck against any opponents in the Olympics." And Teguramori added, "we are going to play with 18 men in Rio de Janeiro. You've got only 18 men already with the two guys leaving. That's a message to tell you that you should look further into the Olympics from here for real." Teguramori boosted the team with a comment on KAMEKAWA Masashi and IWANAMI Takuya, who got injured in the Paraguay match. The players appeared braced when undoing the circle.

After all 18 players worked on running at the begging and the following preparation exercise, they were divided into two groups. 12 players who had playing time for 40 minutes or more in the Paraguay match spent plenty of time stretching. Then, they had a running drill with times measured and did not have any training with the ball before leaving the pitch.

The other group were consisted of OHSHIMA Ryota, MAEDA Naoki, MINAMINO Takumi, IDEGUCHI Yosuke, ONAIWU Ado and KAMADA Daichi. Minamino joined his first training session after arriving in Toulon on 21st.

With assistant coach AKIBA Tadahiro, they worked on a passing and controlling drill and a 4-on-2 possession before moving onto formation practice with the six players positioning at their own position. A group of three players – an anchor, attacking midfielder and forward – went through various plays leading to a finish. With Teguramori's instruction, the players aimed at the goal guarded by goalkeepers KUSHIBIKI Masatoshi and NAKAMURA Kosuke. They came close to goal with speed and accuracy just as they do in a real game.

The training finished in an hour. At a meeting before dinner, the squad reviewed video footage of the Paraguay match on Saturday 21 and made sure of many different issues.

Their second match against Portugal is to be kicked off at 17:15 on Monday 23 May.

Players' Comments

DF #2  VAN WERMESKERKEN Sai (FC Dordrecht/Netherlands)
In the Paraguay match, my back pass resulted in a goal we gave up. That's disappointing. But apart from that, my defence and positioning have improved, compared to the Mexico match in March. Now I'm at the stage of going through details. There is a string of matches with one day break, but playing many matches in a short period of time means a lot to me. In the next match, I will try to play my game and show my strength of attacking.

MF #15  KIDA Takuya (Yokohama F・Marinos)
As an anchor player, I tried to send passes upfront from the first half in the Paraguay match. I was able to thread a few good vertical passes to the attacking midfield, but the rhythm was a bit slow. As the pitch condition wasn't really good, we had more ball touches than usual and our plays slowed down while trying to be accurate. Then, we allowed the opponents to close up. Even in such a situation, it's going to be important for us to challenge without hesitation, especially at the end of attacking. We will try to increase moves like finishing a course of play with a shot or a cross.

MF #18 MINAMINO Takumi (Salzburg/Austria)
This tournament is the last opportunity for the team and for each of us to play against strong teams before Olympics. I want to get something out of it and hopefully contribute to the team with goals and assists as I'm an attacker. For my own club, I played for one full year and won two titles. I was able to be involved in games all the time. I had some stretches where I didn't get results, but by thinking a lot by myself, I got something out of the season. I set my target to score double-digit goals, and I barely made it with just 10 goals. I'm not satisfied, but that gave me confidence. My club’s season ended, but my own season continues until this tournament finishes. My focus is still on, and I’m fit to go.

Schedule

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