The 2nd All Japan Youth (U-18) Futsal Championship had its final day on Sunday 23 August where the last two matches of the tournament, the third-place match and final, took place. Espaco U-18 (Tokai/Shizuoka) and P.S.T.C LONDRINA U-18 (Kanto 1/Kanagawa) played against each other in the third-place match. 

In the final, Okayama Sakuyo High School (Chugoku/Okayama) and Hokkaido Kushiro Hokuyo High School (Hokkaido 3/Hokkaido) went head to head and eventually with the dramatic win, Sakuyo were crowned as the second champions of this tournament history. 

LONDRINA’s UEMATSU Kouto, who currently plays in F.League, showed is phenomenal individual skills in the third-place match. Starting with the match opener in the fourth minute, he scored the total six goals and recorded a double hat trick. His teammate, YOSHIMORI Manato, added four goals, which gave their side a 10-4 rout.

The following final match opened with impressive shooting displays from both sides. While Kushiro Hokuyo had MATSUNO Fumiya score the opener seconds after the kick-off, Sakuyo tied it with IMAGAWA Tomochika’s goal right after the restart.

In the 2nd minute, ITO Keita of Kushiro Hokuyo made his favourite play from the left flank to regain the lead. Two minutes later Sakuyo’s MANAKA Yuto fed the ball to Imagawa right in front of the opposing goal, and TSURUGA Taiga laid it into the back of the net to even the match again. Then in the 9th minute, Sakuyo gained a free-kick and Imagawa scored his second goal of the day to give his side the first lead in the match. 

In the 2nd half, the goal bonanza suddenly came to an end, and there was a long stretch of deadlock. Sakuyo kept pushing into the opponents’ end, only to fail to add up the lead. Then in the 36th minute, Kushiro Hokuyo finally had the net touched again when ONISHI Kazuki tied the match at 3-3.

With the clock ticking down toward the end of the regulation, the go-ahead goal was scored with 30 seconds remaining in the match. Sakuyo’s Manaka, who had repeatedly broken the left flank, penetrated into the middle and put an end to the match with his right foot, as he later said “I thought it would be me to score the go-ahead goal.” Without letting their second lead of the match slip away, Sakuyo closed out the match 4-3 and became the second champions of this tournament history. 

This tournament saw players of various background competing against each other. Some were in the middle of their journey to the All Japan High School Soccer Tournament, while there were others who aim to be professional futsal players.

For everyone, however, the experience of playing at this national stage against the nation’s elite players must have been a valuable steppingstone of their career. As ITO Keita of the runners-up Kushiro Hokuyo High School says of his personal situation “I was going to stop playing and get a job after graduating, but now I want to think about keeping playing futsal,” this tournament seems to have planted a seed of new perspective regarding how these young players get involved in futsal in the future.

The tournament’s MVP award was given to UEMATSU Kouto of LONDRINA, who scored six goals in the third-place match while Sakuyo High School added the Fair Play award to their championship trophy. 

Coach and Players' Comments

MIYOSHI Tatsuya, Coach (Okayama Sakuyo High School）
Our high school football team tried to be a good model of how to play futsal. We have many players who are not good at playing how futsal players are supposed to play. But in football, they can’t play on the top team. If they don’t play futsal well, they won’t be able to have a goal for themselves. So I built a game plan based on dribbling more like football for those players.

Also, I taught more like futsal moves to those who are smaller but like polishing techniques. We tried to play based on maximising each player’s good characteristics. I think if we can have other teams try to copy us, get interested in futsal more, and think like “If Sakuyo can do it, we can do it, too”, then it will lead to a better future of futsal.

MANAKA Yuto (Okayama Sakuyo High School）
It was good that we could win the championship. There were many good teams even in the first round, so all we paid attention to was to win one match at a time and make sure to win what was in front of us. Until we heard the final whistle, we never thought we would be able to win the championship.

It’s just the result of playing to our best abilities. We studied thing like plays of professional futsal plays. We kept being told to “go for it” even in practice, so in our matches we could take advantage of those little things repeated in practice. Speaking of the last goal I scored, in that tough situation I was telling myself that I would be there and score. Next I will work hard to be selected to the roster for the All Japan Soccer Tournament. 

JFA-TV (Japanese version only)

Final

The 2nd All Japan Youth (U-18) Futsal Tournament

Thu. 20 August – Sun. 23 August 2015
XEBIO ARENA SENDAI, Sendai City Gymnasium / Miyagi
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