When we met the kids leaders who go round to coach at nursery schools and kindergartens at the damaged places last year, we received requests to send goals to those nursery schools and kindergartens.

We quickly inquired about the possibility at our recovery committee and then decided to do so to Iwate Prefecture, Miyagi Prefecture and Fukushima Prefecture. Fortunately, we had supports from the J.League and are able to present a total of 190 pop-up goals to them. We first send goals to Minami Sanriku, Iwate Prefecture, in early January, and then to Kesennuma and Tome of Miyagi Prefecture afterward.

At the presentation ceremony, principals of five nursery schools of Minami Sanriku-Cho attended. Not just Minami Sanriku, though, many sports complexes and parks have turned temporary residences after the earthquakes. Because it caused to take places to have fun away from the kids, ENDO Kenji, mayor of the city, said, "We are forcing the children to go through tough times, so we would like to accelerate the reconstruction as fast as possible." The pop-up goals can be built easily, but they won't be broken if any children under the second grades make shots at their full strength. "We have a lot of children who love the game, so they'll be excited," one of the principals said.

In Kesennuma, mayor SUGAWARA Shigeru visited and said, "We hope to produce future J. Leaguers and national team players from this area." Elsewhere, Fuse Takahisa, the mayor of Tome, presented a letter of thanks.

At Tome's Towa Sogo Undo Park, the slope between the ground and roads, which are located below that, were collapsed and could no longer in use. But the recovery constructions are currently underway and a new artificial-turf ground will be open in March. The ground will be a multi-purpose field that can be used for football, rugby, baseball, softball and track and field. "We would like to make it open to the suffered people at coasts and be a part of our supports to them," Mayor Fuse said. For those children who belong to sports clubs of the northern part of the prefecture, it will be a precious practice site.

Following the presentations ceremony, we passed along the Kitakami River and stopped by Okawa Elementary School in Ishinomaki. The school, which is located 4 kilometers from the mouth of the Kitakami River, was struck by the tsunami when the Great East Japan Earthquake and a total of 74 students, which was almost 70 percent of their 108 students, died or were lost. We took a moment of silence, joining our hands in prayer, and then moved to Ogatsu Town of Ishinomaki City. The town lost a lot of residents and the sights were just desolate, but the citizens are whole-heartedly working on the recovery.

After that, we visited Higashi Matsuyama City's Higashi Matsuyama Soccer Sports Boys Club NARUNO FC and it was my first instruction site of the year. We used the gymnasium of Naruse-Oka Elementary School for the members' training from 6:30 p.m. We strictly worked on menus from passing and controlling to 4-on-1s, 3-on-2s and 1-on-3s for their possession training for two hours. In the end, we played some games as I joined them. The children played hard and we were able to take a fun start. We would like to give our best to help the recovery of the suffered places this year, too, and we hope to receive some cooperation from all of you too!