19 September, Folletta Fujinomiya Girls held “JFA Nadeshiko Hiroba” in Fujinomiya, Shizuoka.

Fujinomiya Football Associations supported this event enabling it to take place in the same ground where the Training Centre activities were held by the Boy Committee of the mentioned association. 3 junior high school players who used to play for the Folletta Fujinomiya Girls joined the event to support coaches of the sessions.

This time, the players mainly had basic exercises which required them to run a lot, but they seemed to enjoy each sessions doing their best. The training schedule had various exercises such as “feeling the ball in the air”, and “pass and dribbling exercise using hands in 5-on-5”. What they paid particular attention to in their training was to improve controlling the ball with outside of the foot that they don’t usually use.

They didn’t do it as well as they expected and this exercise was challenging for them, but they showed some smiles when they could eventually begin to control the ball well. In the mini-game that they had at the end of the day, all of the players enjoyed football from bottom of their hearts and they begged to keep playing even after the game ended.

Host’s Comment

SHIOKAWA Kunihiro, Coach
In Fujinomiya, there have been limited opportunities for elementary school girls to play football. Apart from joining in the “Fujisan Cup” which takes place in Fujinomiya, they couldn’t make any girls teams and they usually had to play with boys. There are many girl players who had to give up football when they grew up and had more physical and fitness gap when compared with boy players of a similar age since they were still required to compete with boys in mixed teams and there were almost no girl teams especially after secondary school age.

In November 2013, we founded “Fujinomiya Ladies Soccer Club” with the hopes of: “creating opportunities for female football players”, “female players to enjoy football more”, and “female players to keep playing football”. Since we started “JFA Nadeshiko Hiroba” in April 2014, we have worked for promoting women’s football through this event and this has been our 19th “Nadeshiko Hiroba”.

From this April, “Fujinomiya Ladies Soccer Club” changed its name to “Folletta Fujinomiya Girls” and the team has 30 registered players. We will keep working on encouraging women’s football not only in “Nadeshiko Hiroba” but also in any other occasion. The players of our team usually play for local football teams or club teams, so we have few chances to play together as a team, but they try their best to join us occasionally.

We welcome any girl who wants to try women’s football such as: trying girl’s football matches, experiencing football only with girls, improving football skills amongst female players, or starting to play football for the first time.

Participant’s Comments

Participant’s Comment
It’s very fun to play football amongst girls and I’m also happy to make many friends here. I can show how good I can be when I play in a girls-only environment, so I want to have more match opportunities in the future.

Participant’s Parent Comment
She looked bit bored when she played with the boys since she has fewer chances to play in any matches. But when it comes to women’s football match, she looks happier since she has more chances to be selected for matches and there are many good friends she can find. Most of all, I can see a lot more smiles on her face now.

JFA Nadeshiko Hiroba

It is an occasion that any females, from the children to the girls, to the mothers and grandmothers, are able to casually enjoy the game of football. It is run by organizations and facilities that are approved by the JFA.

JFA Nadeshiko Hiroba (Japanese version only)