One day ahead of their first match of the AFC U-16 Women's Championship Thailand 2019, the U-16 Japan Women's National Team held their final training session on Saturday 14 September. The session lasted about an hour, where the players were seen going through basic agility drills, followed by drills conducted by each position to go over their attacking patterns.

An official press conference was held in the morning, as coaches from teams of Group A, Japan, Thailand, Australia, and Bangladesh, all appeared to express their aspirations ahead of the tournament.

The U-16 Japan Women's National Team will face the U-16 Australia Women's National Team on Sunday 15 September at 16:00 (18:00 Japan time).

Coach and Players' Comments

KANO Michihisa, Coach (Sagawa Shiga FC)
We will be playing our first match at the AFC. We are planning on playing a total of five matches up to the final, but we must first win through the group stage. We hope to win our first match and gain momentum we can carry through this tournament. In order to do so, we must follow through with what we have been working on and play aggressively throughout the match. Since arriving to Thailand, we have been simulating the games in our training sessions to get ourselves mentally prepared. Our players have shown great positivity and enthusiasm through the sessions, so we hope to build our team through each match. For now, we will focus on giving our best efforts until the very end in our first match of this tournament.

DF #23 HIRANAKA Kyono (Urawa Red Diamonds Ladies Youth)
When I first joined this team, I was worried that I wasn’t good enough to be here. However, as we started to conduct our training sessions, I started to think that I am here for a reason. That is why I am now focusing on actively communicating with my teammates to create a positive vibe for the team. Since arriving to Thailand, we have been working together as a team to get used to the environment. In this past two days, we have been simulating the match against Australia in our training sessions, and everyone has worked extremely well to get ourselves prepared for the match. I will give everything I’ve got to help the team win the match.

MF #8 OTA Moe (JFA Academy Fukushima)
I was very happy when I found out that I was selected to this team, but at the same time, I got very anxious leading to the training camp held in Japan, and there were many nights I couldn’t sleep. I still remember the nervousness I felt when the team was gathered for the first time. After we entered Thailand, the team has held training sessions that simulated our upcoming match and we have been able to build a positive atmosphere. In our final training ahead of the first match, we went through our attacking patterns to get ourselves on the same page. I feel like we were able to conclude today’s session with a good vibe. I am also getting myself mentally prepared for our match against Australia. We hope to enter the match with this positive atmosphere and continue to challenge ourselves in the match. I will focus on making lots of runs to help the team. We will work hard as a team to earn a victory in our first match of the tournament.

MF #19 NISHIGORI Mahiro (Nojima Stella Kanagawa Sagamihara Due)
Since joining this team, I have been able to get used to the atmosphere and give my usual performance on the field. I have especially focused on heightening the quality of my ball control and passing skills. The team has communicated well with each other and we have been able to build our teamwork through our training sessions. We worked on our combinations during the preparation camp, and once arriving to Thailand, we focused on getting used to the environment, so that we can prepare ourselves to give our best performance on the pitch. Today was our final training session ahead of our match against Australia, and we were able to build a very positive vibe through this session. In our first match of this tournament, we hope to showcase a good performance as a team and get off to a good start by winning the 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 2019

Tournament Dates: Sun. 15 - Sat. 28 September 2019

Group Stage:
Sun. 15 September 18:00 (Japan time)
vs U-16 Australia Women's National Team

Wed. 18 September 18:00 (Japan time)
vs U-16 Bangladesh Women's National Team

Sat. 21 September 18:00 (Japan time)
vs U-16 Thailand Women's National Team

Tournament Information