The JOC Junior Olympic Cup 18th All-Japan Women’s Youth Football Championship will start its matches on Saturday 3 January, 2015 at J-GREEN Sakai in Osaka. As the buildup for the tournament, let us review some of the memorable scenes of the last tournament.

The 17th Championship brought 16 teams from across the nation and exhibited knock-out heated contests over five days.

The final-four contestants were NTV Menina (Kanto 1/Tokyo), FC VICTORIES (Kansai 1/Hyogo), Urawa Reds Ladies Youth (Kanto 3 / Saitama) and JEF United Ichihara Chiba Ladies U-18 (Kanto 2/Chiba). The semi-finals and final matches were played over two 45-minute halves, while those of the first and second rounds employed two 40-minute halves.

The first semi-final was between NTV and FC VICTORIES. The then three-time defending champion NTV started their furious attacks from the beginning. In the fourth minute Momiki Yuka scored off a feed from Miyagawa Asato, and a minute later Momiki again put their lead up to two with her second goal. As FC VICTORIES tried to come back from early deficit, it conversely gave more room for NTV to attack and add goals after goals. The final result was impressive 12-0 in favour of NTV, who advanced to the final.

Urawa and JEF L went head to head in the second semi-final match, which started off very intensely. As Jef took the early offensive pace and threatened Urawa’s goal, Urawa’s cohesive defence was solidly set and gradually turned over the course of the match. Then in the 50th minute, Urawa’s Endo Yu fired to give her team the first lead of the match. The goal accelerated Urawa’s offence and Shiokoshi Yuzuho and Nagano Fuuka both added their own goal in the 59th and 74th minutes respectively. In the end, Urawa defeated JEF L 3-0 to move on to the final.

The final between NTV and Urawa turned out to be a showdown of two strong wills. NTV kept connecting short passes to move up to the goal, and in the 25th minute Momiki took advantage of a cross from Miura Narumi to open the scoring. In the 27th, NTV had Sumida Rin dash to leave defenders behind and receive a feed from Momiki. Then her crafty chip shot went into the goal to widen NTVs lead to two goals. Meanwhile Urawa tried to come back with offensive substitution in the second half. They kept getting close to their goal by shooting middle-range shots and breaking through the flanks, but NTV’s defence led by goal keeper Tanaka Momoko denied each of Urawa’s attacking efforts. 

Although NTV spent more time for defending, their offensive end stayed hot. In the 76th minute, Doko Mayo headed the ball off a set-piece in for the third goal for the club. Two minutes later Funaki Nodoka scored for her own to seal the victory. NTV won the final 4-0 in the end and achieved the four-straight championships which no other club had ever done. After the match, NTV’s head coach Suzuki Shun said “I don’t want our players to be satisfied with this win and want them to keep aiming higher.”

JOC Junior Olympic Cup 18th All Japan Youth Women's Football Tournament

Sat. 3 January - Wed 7 January 2015
J-GREEN Sakai/Osaka

More information on the tournament