On Monday 14 January, the third and final day of the 11th Football Conference took place at Kochi prefecture.

The final day started with a forum featuring women’s football. AFC Technical Director, Andy ROXBURGH navigated the forum as Coach IKEDA Futoshi of the U-19 Japan Women's National Team reflected on the U-20 Japan Women's National Team, who won the Women’s World Cup in France last year.

While Coach Ikeda stated that, “The persistency to fight hard until the very end is a quality the Japanese Women’s player have,” he also mentioned that the overall level of women’s football has seen a great improvement over the years, and the other countries are closing down the gap dramatically. With that in mind, the coach continued sharing that they are analysing and polishing their techniques to fight against the world to “See the scenery beyond (winning the World Cup). Joined by everybody present at this conference, we hope to further develop women’s football.” Following Coach Ikeda’s analysis on women’s football, Mr. Roxburgh took the podium to give a presentation on the world’s trend seen at the World Cup in Russia by utilising the key phrases of “Schools of football” and “Streetwise.” The presentation gave the participants the opportunity to look into what Japan has to do in order to succeed at the world level.

In the next section, a panel discussion was conducted by Coach KAGEYAMA Masanaga of the U-20 Japan National Team, Coach MORIYAMA Yoshiro of the U-17 Japan National Team, JFA Youth Development Director IKEUCHI Yutaka, and other personals involved in youth development. An active discussion was held to discuss the ideal environment and activities needed for the development ages. Coach Moriyama concluded the discussion by stating, “10 years after winning the World Youth Championship, the Spain National Team won the World Cup. By giving the development category the opportunity to play at the highest level, the result will directly impact the top category. We hope to develop more players that will excel at the next stage.” Following the discussion, Coach Kageyama mentioned, “These three days really made me realise that we still have many things to work on. We hope to get together so that we can make all these things we discussed in reality.”

As part of the final programme, JFA Coaches Training Director, SUZUKI Jun summarised the conference by giving a lecture utilising the words of the guest speakers over the past three days. The three-day conference concluded with JFA Technical Director SEKIZUKA Takashi giving the participants a live message from UAE via videophone.

Participants’ Comments

・This three-day conference has clarified where the Japanese football community must strive for. It also gave us the opportunity to reunite with the coaches from all over the nation and discuss with each other to encourage and motivate ourselves.

・As a player, I didn’t realise how much the coaches has been working behind the scenes, but through this conference, I was able to realise that aspect and learn many new things. The words given by people from all over the world has given me great inspiration.

・By learning the approaches taken by the rest of the world, it gave me a precious opportunity to rethink about the “Japan's Way.” We must not think too hard and try to improve on our strong points. I believe that is the right approach to strengthen the “Japan's Way.”