On the second day of the National Training Centre, in the morning field players worked on defence while goalkeepers worked on breakaway plays. In the afternoon, it was offence for field players and joining attacks for goalkeepers.

During the meeting in the evening, the workout themes for the next day were explained and coach Kato Kenji, chief coach of National Training Centre U-15 Women, gave young players a motivational talk. “You can play better! Now you are satisfied only with being here at the camp! Show us more of what you can do. Show us more of what you can do better than others.” enthusiastically he commented, and at the halfway of the camp, the players were well reminded of why they had been called up.

Players Comments

[On Morning Practice]

NAITO Karin (Hokkaido Prefecture: Varmos Eniwa FC)
What I tried to do in the morning when we practiced defence was always staying vocal, talking to my teammates and defending as a team. I also tried to make a big first step to approach to the ball and kept my opponents from moving freely. What I couldn’t do well was to be flexible in moving around depending on the player with the ball. So I will keep getting better at positioning myself, moving around depending on speed and distance of each pass that the opposing offence makes so that I can get the ball when I need to. In this four-day camp, I want to keep challenging myself, learning by watching other players, doing everything I can do now and improving myself.

ISHIGAKI Honoka (Tohoku / Miyagi Prefecture: FC Miyagi)
In the morning, goalkeepers worked on “breakaway plays”. We worked on diving frontward and blocking shots. When diving frontward, I always tried to get to the ball by taking the shortest route possible to the ball. It takes just one moment for the ball to leave the opponent’s foot. So we can’t miss that one moment. It was difficult to keep up when the offence made a move horizontally. But mostly I could get to the ball by the shortest route and didn’t miss the ball leaving their foot. In blockings shots, what was difficult was to use my entire body to make one big wall and block shots. But I learned that the closer I get to the ball, the easier it gets to block. I will make use of what I learned today and I want to make this four days very meaningful.

[On Afternoon Practice]

IKEDA Shion (Tokai / Shizuoka Prefecture: Tokoha Gakuen Tachibana Women’s Football Club)
In the afternoon, we worked on offence. I tried especially to score goals. In this camp I am playing with better players than I normally do, so it was difficult to pass by defenders with my dribble and get good positions to receive passes. But by always trying to get closer to the goal after receiving passes, I could shoot it by myself and when I couldn’t shoot by myself, I could give passes to my teammates at a better position. Tomorrow I will focus on what I couldn’t do today and improve myself even better. I will do everything I can do at each moment.

HONMA Misaki (Kanto / Saitama Prefecture: Urawa Reds Ladies Junior Youth)
The theme of goalkeepers’ workout in the afternoon was “joining attacks”. I am not very good at joining attacks, and I often get lost when I receive a pass back from defenders. But in this workout, I paid attention to how I receive the pass and where the opponents are at those moments. Then that made me more confident with the ball and I could feed passes more carefully than usual. When I feed a long pass to my teammates far away, my pass loses accuracy, so next time I want to get even better to be able to make my long passes more accurate and easier for my teammate to receive. In the match, I showed what I learned in the “joining attacks” training, I received passes more actively and I could send them to my teammates perfectly. I want to keep trying to feeding better passes after catching the ball as well as after receiving passes.

In stopping shots, I did what I learned on the first day, and I could hold them scoreless. I will always keep it in mind that a goalkeeper is the 11th field player. I will try to show in real matches what I have learned and what I will learn. I will do my best to allow no goal until this camp finishes. Then after going back to my club, I will keep working to get better.