Japan U-23 Women’s Squad members arrived in Spain in the early morning of 24 February to compete in the International U-23 Women’s Tournament La Manga.

After the 24 hour-long journey, the players had a light training session mainly with jogging in the morning. They adjusted their conditions firstly by reducing tiredness for the match against USA in 2 days time.

Afternoon training began with agility training session in which 4 players from 4 different directions made dashes toward a ball. Then they had another physical strengthen training using a full pitch. The players also had 1-on-1, 1-on-2, and 2-on-3 mini games mainly focusing on defense improvement. This training session was for checking how to approach the ball and to maximise existing defense when the number of defense players isn’t enough.

The training sessions finished with intra-squad match.

Player's Comment

NAKAMURA Yushika (Kanto Gakuen University)
This morning we had a light jogging to warm-up and then in the afternoon we mainly had defensive training. Our first match is the day after tomorrow. Apart from getting my physical condition ready for the match, I want to communicate very well with my teammates both on and off the pitch to make a good teamwork for making strategies and playing practically. What we want in this occasion is to get the victory even though we haven’t had much time to get ready as a team prior to the match against the USA. Personally, I want to contribute very well to the team both in offense and defense and to make this opportunity very meaningful. We have only 1 day to go to the first match, so we are getting ready very well to ensure that we get the victory in our first match with all of our effort.