The 40th Japan U-12 Football Championship will begin on Sunday 25 December. The opening ceremony will be held on the same date, while the competition matches will start from 26 December. Prior to the opening of this tournament which is celebrating its 40th anniversary, this article will review the previous championship.

The 39th Japan U-12 Football Championship was held during winter for the first time in its history; previously it took place in summer. This change was made so that more U-12 players will have chances to participate in the regional league matches between April and October. Another reason was that winter is a good season for players to display their strengths improved during the year, in addition to the weather being move favorable in December than in the middle of hot summer.

The opening ceremony last year was held on Friday 25 December and a total of 48 teams from all over Japan took part to become the top Japanese U-12 team in Kagoshima prefecture from Saturday 26 to Tuesday 29.

The teams were divided into 12 groups of 4 teams and played in a round-robin tournament for the first round. Eventually 4 teams of Futsu SSS (Ishikawa), Kashima Antlers Junior Youth (Ibaraki), Regista FC (Saitama), and Hyogo FC (Hyogo), qualified for the semi-finals, going through a knock-out Round of 16.

The first semi-final was between Futsu SSS and Kashima Antlers Junior Youth. Kashima took an early advantage through ITO Ryunosuke’s goal. YASUDA Kojiro of Futsu equalised but Kashima’s OWA Fushi scored the decisive goal and beat Futsu 2-1. In the second semi-final, Regista FC’s YAMAZAKI Rin and other players scored three goals and beat Hyogo FC 3-0.

The final took place under clear skies. Both Kashima and Regista showed their passion to win the title from the beginning of the match. Both teams made swift transition from offence to defence to minimise the risk of conceding any goals. In the 36th minute, Regista’s Yamazaki successfully connected a free kick by UDAGAWA Eiru and scored the opening goal.

Regista continued to score additional goals, while maintaining their solid defence. Before the end of the match, SHINODA Daiki scored their second and decisive goal which led the team to win the title for the first time in their team’s history. Yamazaki  who scored the important opening goal said after the match: ”I will keep playing football in junior-high and high-school. I want to grab the title of the national-level competition again.”

This year, Kashima is the only one of these top 4 teams who have come through to this championship. Every team have gone through intensive regional qualifiers to play for this national-level championship; they all are expected to give their best thinking about the local teams who could not qualify for this competition.

40th Japan U-12 Football Championship

Tournament Period：
Sunday 25 December - Thursday 29 December

Tournament Venue：
1st round/Round 16   Kagoshima Fureai Sports Land (Kagoshima)
Quarter-Final   Kagoshima Kamoike Auxiliary Field (Kagoshima)
Semi-Final/Final   Kagoshima Kamoike Auxiliary Field (Kagoshima)

Tournament Information