Pick Up Match

Tokyo Verdy Youth 2-3 (1st 0-1, 2nd 2-2) Shimizu S-pulse Youth

The Prince Takamado Trophy U-18 Premier League had its Week 12 on Sunday 7 September and Tokyo Verdy Youth (Tokyo) took on Shimizu S-pulse Youth (Shizuoka) at their Verdy Ground. Both team missed a few key players in the match as Tokyo Verdy were without Nakano Masaomi and Shimizu were without Kitagawa Koya and Mizutani Takuma all due to the national U-19 team obligation. Mikasa Kento also could not play for Tokyo Verdy because of the injury.

As head coach Hiraoka Hiroaki put it “We got ourselves ready no matter who were going to be on the pitch,” Shimizu started the match well early. They kept passing the ball by Tokyo Verdy defenders having hard time coping with water-covered slippery pitch and threatened Verdy’s goal. In the 11th minute, Nishizawa scored the first goal of the match off a corner kick by Mochizuki Hiro. Shimizu held onto the single-goal lead by showing crisp passing mostly in the Tokyo Verdy’s end until the end of the first half.

The beginning of the second half saw Shimizu’s continued dominance. In the 51st minute, Nishizawa penetrated in front of Tokyo’s goal after exchanging passes with Mochizuki Hiro and Nishizawa put a beautiful chip shot into the goal to double the lead. In the 70th, Mochizuki Hiro’s corner kick led to a header by Miyamoto Kota to extend the lead to three.

That was when Tokyo Verdy started showing some attacking efforts with their back on the wall. They started feeding long balls to their tall forward Kori Hiromu and pushing back Shimizu’s defence line. That newly-acquired momentum created the skilful goal by Togashi Ryo, and five minutes later a loose ball came out after the corner kick to Fukazawa Daiki, and he put it into the goal to cut Shimizu’s lead back to one. But Shimizu also showed their poise and controlled the ball until the game finished with the score being 3-2. Since Kashiwa Reysol U-18 (Chiba) lost in their own match, Shimizu are now placed back on top in the standings.

Comments

TOGASHI Koichi, Head Coach, Tokyo Verdy Youth
I thought how accurately we can play set-pieces would be the key in this match, so we have been working on them. We scored a goal in a set-piece, so I think we showed what we worked on. But also we allowed goals in corner kick plays as well. I am satisfied with most of what we did, so we will keep making adjustments in practice and I think our goal for the next match will be “play a great game and win”.

ANZAI Tatsuya, Tokyo Verdy Youth
Last few matches, after we allowed the first goal, we always couldn’t hang in there and kept losing some more and we completely lost the momentum. Today, we lost goals early in the both halves and it’s hard to swallow. But we came back and cut the deficit to only one and I think that is a positive side. We have many injuries and we are in a tough stretch, but we keep playing loud and active in practice and get prepared for the next match.

Hiraoka Hiroaki, Shimizu S-pulse Youth
I am glad that we scored goals when we needed in both halves. Especially in the first half, we had a great focus both in our offence and defence, and didn’t allow them to attack us. We try to take over what former head coach Oenoki Katsumi tried to implement and we are also working on details such as not losing our activeness until the last minute. Our players showed glimpse of that today.

Nishizawa Kenta, Shimizu S-pulse Youth
(Speaking on the chip shot for the team’s second goal) Everything was exactly how I wanted, from the receiving it to the finish. We played well and got our lead to three, and then we got too easy on ourselves. We put ourselves in a difficult situation. But we could keep playing tough defence. We don’t play fancy, but we will keep playing tough and mounting up points.

Results of Other Matches

JFA Academy Fukushima 5-1 (1st 1-0, 2nd 4-1) Consadole Sapporo
Ichiritsu Funabashi High School 1-2 (1st 0-2, 2nd 1-0) Aomori Yamada High School
Ryutsu Keizai Kashiwa High School 4-1 (1st 2-0, 2nd 2-1) Kashiwa Reysol U-18
Mitsubishi Yowa SC Youth 0-1 (1st 0-0, 2nd 0-1) Kashima Antlers Youth

JFA Academy Fukushima (Shizuoka) had five different players score a goal and defeated Consadole Sapporo (Hokkaido) 5-1. It was the first win of the season’s second half for the Academy. Ichiritsu Funabashi High School (Chiba) and Aomori Yamada High School (Aomori) were both on a winning streak and they went head to head against each other. Goals by Kikuchi Ryuho and Tandai Aito helped Aomori Yamada won the matchup. Ryutsu Keizai Kashiwa High School (Chiba) upset then league-leaders Kashiwa Reysol U-18 (Chiba) 4-1 and grabbed the first three points since Week 9. Mitsubishi Yowa Youth (Tokyo) welcomed Kashima Antlers Youth (Ibaraki) at home, but failed to record points by allowing a winning goal to Yoshioka Juriya in the 61st minute.