On Monday 26 August, this year’s second coaches’ meeting of the Prince Takamado Trophy JFA U-18 Football Premier League took place at JFA House in Tokyo.

The Premier League coaches’ meeting has been held since 2017 and this year’s meeting attracted 35 participants including, Chairman HAYASHI Yoshinori from the Organising Committee for the Prince Takamado Trophy, coaches (or representatives) from the 20 participating teams of the Premier League, Youth Development Director IKEUCHI Yutaka and Vice Technical Director YAMAMOTO Masakuni from the JFA Technical Committee, coach KAGEYAMA Masanaga of the U-20 Japan National Team, and coach MORIYAMA Yoshiro of the U-17 Japan National Team.

At the beginning of the meeting, coach MORIYASU Hajime of the SAMURAI BLUE (Japan National Team) took the podium and stated, “I would like to express my respect for your hard work towards youth development.” Many participants were surprised by the sudden appearance made by coach Moriyasu, but they all listened closely to his words.

During the meeting, the new regulations were discussed, followed by the first-term report of the Technical Study Group (TSG) shared by Youth Development Assistant Director YAMAHASHI Takashi. Chairman Hayashi then shared the calendar plan for 2020.

The two national team coaches, coach Moriyama and coach Kageyama, shared the upcoming schedule of the national teams. With the FIFA U-17 World Cup Brazil 2019 scheduled this October, coach Moriyama asked for all the coaches’ support and understanding, as he mentioned, “we will need to borrow your players, but we are always striving to make them a better player before returning them to your team. This process will ultimately make the Japan National Team stronger.” Coach Kageyama, who led the U-20 Japan National Team at the FIFA U-20 World Cup Poland 2019, shared his take on the tournament and discussed the tasks he took away from the competition.

At this meeting, a discussion session held by the entire participants took place for the first time. As Youth Development Director Ikeuchi facilitated the session, opinions were exchanged on the topics of “development plans for the Japan National Team,” and “reform plans for the Premier League.” During the discussion, coach HIRAOKA Hiroaki of Shimizu S-Pulse Youth pointed out, “in order to develop players who can play at the world level, the coaches must first understand the world standards.” His comment triggered further discussions on the importance for the coaches to attend the national team activities, as coach NAKAMURA Koji of Shoshi High School, who attended the U-17 Japan National Team’s tour to Czech Republic last August, described his experience with the national team, “it was a very precious experience. I was able to see in first-hand what it takes to compete at the world level.”

When the discussion extended over to the topic on the transition of the players from the U-15 category to the U-18 category, Vice Technical Director Yamamoto asked coach KURODA Go of Aomori Yamada High School, “how did SHIBASAKI Gaku develop as a player?” Coach Kuroda responded by sharing his experience with Shibasaki, “since he was in junior high school, I knew he had the potential to turn pro. But in order for him to play at the world stage, he needed to become capable of assessing his own weaknesses and work to improve on his talents.” For that reason, coach Kuroda made Shibasaki play with high school players during his second year at junior high school and had him play in all the matches of the Prince Takamado Cup All-Japan Youth (U-18) Football Championship during his third year at junior high school.

Vice Technical Director Yamamoto made a speech to conclude the meeting, as he mentioned, “we have set our goals in ‘The JFA Declaration,2005,’ that we will reach the semi-finals of the World Cup by 2030, host the World Cup and win the title by 2050. The players who are striving to reach the semi-finals in 2030, are now playing for your team. We hope to develop these players with the intention that we are all striving to achieve the same goal.”

The Premier League has just concluded the 11th Sec. and entered the second half. Please keep an eye on the young talents who will soon represent the Japanese football community.

Participants’ Comments

IKEUCHI Yutaka, JFA Youth Development Director
It is important that we all understand that we are all striving towards the same goal. In order to get ourselves on the same page, it is essential for us to hold these meetings, share the latest activities conducted by the Japan National Team and discuss the recent trends of the world. I feel like we were able to accomplish that to some extent. Today we tried holding a discussion session for the first time, but I feel like we could have conducted the session more frankly and narrowed down the topics more. However, it was nice to see the participants naturally engaging in the discussions, and we were able to hear many stories from different perspectives.

MORIYAMA Yoshiro, Coach (U-17 Japan National Team)
In order to improve the environments for our players’ development, we were able to facilitate frank exchange of opinions. We were also able to share the activities conducted by the U-15 to U-20 categories of the national team and discuss our future goals. This meeting has allowed us to reconfirm our goal to develop the young players as a whole community. If we can all face the same direction, Japan can be much stronger. By having the coaches who are looking over the top prospects of this country to gather in a meeting like this, it allowed us to spend a very productive time.

HIRAOKA Hiroaki, Coach (Shimizu S-Pulse Youth)
This is our third year since we started holding this summer meeting, and each time we have been able to conduct a productive meeting. We were able to review the first half of the Premier League season and the TSG report has shown that we are seeing a very close competition this year. The tight competition has given the players and coaches great inspiration to strive for a higher level.

Prince Takamado Trophy JFA U-18 Football Premier League 2019

League Duration: Sat. 6 April - Sun. 8 December 2019

League Information