On Friday 2 November, the JFA 15th Japan Women's Futsal Championship started its matches to determine the best female futsal squad in the country. The tournament moved to Ishikawa Sports Center in Ishikawa Prefecture this year and the first day saw 16 heated first-round battles.

Group A includes three first-timers, and one of them, hometown favourite VEEX Ishikawa Ladies (Host City/Ishikawa) surprised the audience. They challenged Members of the GANG (Tokai 2/Mie) who finished third last year at their first match. Early on VEEX Ishikawa Ladies had ONO Fumiko score the opening goal. Even after allowing the opponents to come back and take the lead within the first half, they scored two goals in the second half to get their first win in this tournament. In their second match, VEEX defeated Kalebitch Ehime Ladies (Shikoku/Ehime) 4-1 to stay on top of the group so far with two straight wins. In the third match on 3 November, they will take on Espolada Hokkaido Irneve (Hokkaido) who belong to Women's F.League. It will be interesting to see which first-time participants advance to the knock-out round.

In Group B, arco-iris Kobe (Kansai 2/Hyogo) sets their eyes on their fifth title, while VEEX Tokyo Ladies (Kanto 1/Tokyo) came back to the tournament after missing last year, as the two teams have won two matches so far. While these two clubs are displaying their dominance in this group, MESSE Sendai Ladies (Tohoku 2/Miyagi) did their best and held arco-iris KOBE to only three goals despite the loss. Considering the fact that the Sendai side lost to arco-iris Kobe 12-0 last year, many teams all over the country are closing down the gap between the few elite teams.

SWH Ladies Futsal Club (Kansai 1/Hyogo) are the frontrunners in Group C with two consecutive victories on their way to the first final round appearance in two years. FUGADOR Sumida Ladies (Kanto 3/Tokyo) were expected to be the runners-up in this group, but struggled against Laufen (Hokushinetsu 2/Toyama) in their second match after beating Colac,o Fukuoka (Kyushu/Fukuoka) at the first match. Laufen are led by SUTO Yuria and OINO Sara who are on the U-18 Japan Women's Futsal National Team that recently finished second in the 3rd Youth Olympic Futsal Tournament. FUGADOR Sumida Ladies took the lead first with KITAZUMI Haruna's goal but struggled to score more goals afterwards. Moments before the end of the match, Laufen's TAKEUCHI Nana equalised the match and FUGADOR could only add one point to the total four points due to that 1-1 draw.

Two Women's F.League squads are in Group D. Defending champions Fukui Maruoka RUCK (Hokushinetsu 1/Fukui) won two in a row including the one against FUCHU ATHLETIC F.C. PRIMEIA (Kanto 2/Tokyo) in the second match and now lead the group. Their coach TANAKA Etsuhiro says, “It's exciting even for me to see how the players on the Youth Olympic team and the rest of the players who have been working hard in Japan play well together. We didn't get affected at all even after allowing a goal. I feel that we are full of confidence now." It will certainly be one of the main attractions of this tournament to see if any teams can upset the mighty champions.

Now that two matches of the first round are in the books, no teams have clinched a spot into the knockout round yet. On Saturday 3 November, the second day of the tournament, all participating teams will keep fighting hard for the four slots in the next round. The current group leaders aim to march onto the next stage while the rest of the teams will seek to come from behind.

Comments

UTSUGI Miru (VEEX Ishikawa Ladies)
This is my first Japan Women's Futsal Championship appearance in a while, and I am having a lot of fun. We are here to win the title but winning two matches in a row is a pretty satisfying start to the tournament. Our team consists with half of the players living in Ishikawa and the other half living in Tokyo. And our sets are formed based on where we live. We have a wide range of age group, as the youngest player is 17 years old, while the oldest is 42. Despite the age difference, we manage to have fun as a team. Our Tokyo group runs the composed offence, while the Ishikawa group runs the fast breaks. We will work together as a team and showcase solid defence to make our way into the final round.

SANOKAWA Yuuri (Espolada Hokkaido Irneve)
This is my first time in three years to make it into the Japan Women's Futsal Championship. With the tournament taking place in Hokkaido until last year, I had a mixed feeling to be working as the tournament staff over the years. So, to be here and participate in this tournament as a player means a lot for us. I feel like we are just setting ourselves on the start line. We managed to showcase what we have been working on in our 0-0 draw in the first match. I was able to score our first goal of the tournament in the second match. I knew OTA Suzuka was going to find me, so I kept running towards the goal. Although we conceded the equaliser after that goal, we still managed to win the match. We cannot afford to lose in our match tomorrow. We will reset our minds and prepare for the match.

KARASAWA Hiroaki, Coach (MESSE Sendai Ladies)
We had a very regretful and embarrassing experienced last year, so we really wanted to come back to this stage. We used to take great emphasis in our offence, but this year we have worked on our defence, as we knew that was the aspect we had to improve on the most. Unfortunately, the result didn't come out the way we envisioned, but I think the players have learnt so much from today's match. The result may seem negative, but there were positives that we can take back, so we will work hard to earn our first win in our match tomorrow.

MAEKAWA Yoshinobu, Coach (Laufen)
Considering where the team were two months ago, I am very proud of my players. However, looking at the results, we weren't able to gain the desired results, so that is very regretful. After drawing the second match, we were mathematically eliminated from the tournament. But despite the result itself, this tournament has given our players a precious learning experience, so we will implement this experience to our future activities and work to give back to the Toyama Prefecture. We will keep that in mind and prepare ourselves ahead of the third match.

JFA 15th Japan Women's Futsal Championship

Tournament Dates: Fri. 2 - Sun. 4 November 2018
Tournament Venue: Ishikawa Sports Center, Ishikawa Prefecture
Tournament Information