On Tuesday 26 February, the U-17 Japan National Team returned to Japan to conclude their activities of the Chile Tour.

As part of the “SPORT FOR TOMORROW” programme carried out by the Japan Sport Council (JSC), the team toured to Chile and participated in an exchange tournament where they finished as the runners-up with a record of one win and one loss after playing against Paraguay and Chile. During the tour, the team paid a visit to Santiago Japanese School to interact with the local Japanese children. The team was able to earn a victory over Chile in their final match where many of the local children came to watch their match.

The Japanese side faced two strong teams who are preparing themselves for the qualification round of the FIFA U-17 World Cup 2019. The victory they earned was a result of the players showcasing their strong points and it shall give them a great boost to their confidence. However, the team must strive for higher levels to compete against the world’s best teams at the U-17 World Cup.

Coach’s Comment

MORIYAMA Yoshiro, Coach (U-17 Japan National Team)
This was our first activity as a team since our championship campaign at the AFC U-16 Championship last September. In this tour, we travelled to Chile to face Paraguay and Chile, who are both preparing for the South American qualifiers of the U-17 World Cup.

In our first match against Paraguay, the team had to endure a long travel, a 12-hour time difference, and a climate that exceeded 30 degrees Celsius. We struggled in the first half to adjust to the Paraguayan side who showcased an enormous amount of aggression in both offence and defence. The second half saw the opponents running out of gas and we managed to take control of the match but failed to capitalise on our opportunities to finish off the match. While we struggled to score a goal, our opponents captured the go-ahead goal from a dynamic header to hand us a very disappointing loss with a final score of 1-2.

All seven players who didn’t get the start in the first match were featured in the starting line-up against Chile in our second match. We made the adjustments from the first match to effectively utilise the space behind our opponents and applied pressure by moving the ball around. Compared to the first match, our players did a better job to win the ball and showed more aggression to display a great battle against the energetic Chilean side and win the match 3-1.

The two matches have given us the opportunity to experience a unique game-intensity, which we wouldn’t be able to face in Japan. The players did a great job to put up an equally matched bout through the entire 90 minutes to showcase the potential of what the Japanese players are capable of doing. On top of that, the players showed their ability to make decisions on what they need to do to irritate the opponents in certain situations, and overall, the match was played at a very high level.

I would like to thank the Paraguayan and Chilean players for inducing the Japanese players to play with great enthusiasm and aggression. I wish them the very best at the intense South American qualifiers and hope to see them at the World Cup. Our players will now return to their daily lives in Japan, but I hope they will remember the matches we played in South America and utilise the experience to keep them motivated. Lately, I would like to thank everyone for understanding and supporting our activity as the national team. I am grateful for the clubs for allowing the players to join us during this critical time before the season, the staffs of the All Japan High School Athletic Federation, and the parents of the players for supporting us. Thank you very much.

Schedule

*Local Time
*The schedule is subject to change due to the team condition, the weather, etc.

About “SPORT FOR TOMORROW”

“SPORT FOR TOMORROW” is an international sport contribution initiative led by the Japanese government, which was announced by Prime Minister ABE Shinzo during the IOC Congress in order to promote the bidding activities for the 2020 Olympics and Paralympics in Tokyo. It is aimed to spread the value of ‘SPORT’ to more than 10 million people across all generations in over 100 nations, especially in developing countries, from the year 2014 leading up to the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo.