On 7 August, Nadeshiko Japan had a final training session before their last match at the EAFF Women’s East Asian Cup 2015, which will be held in Wuhan, China. 

The team arrived at the training venue in the morning and started the session with warm-up exercises. After a passing exercise they had a practice match, which wasn’t open to media, to check combination and set plays for about 1 hour.

Japan faces the hosting country China PR for the next match. Forward TAKASE Megumi says, “Chinese players are quick and they are strong in challenging moments in front of the ball. Additionally, it is their home match; they can gain momentum against us.” Midfielder MASUYA Rika also commented, “We need to manage risks well since they are strong enough to find the space behind us. We have prepared some adjustments if that’ll be the case, so we’ll be careful to prevent their sudden attack.”

The team captain midfielder KAWAMURA Yuri expressed the current situation of the team which aims to get their first victory in this competition. “We have the motivation that we definitely want to win, but we need stronger motivation so that we’ll even go beyond the capability of former Nadeshiko Japan team that competed at the FIFA Women’s World Cup in Canada. This should be expressed in our play in the next match; people can never understand us if we don’t show it. We just concentrate on getting the victory.”

China PR also hasn’t got any wins in the past two matches so they are desperate to win the last match of this competition in their home country. The match will kick-off at 8:10 pm (9:10 in Japan time). The match that decides the winner of this competition between Korea Republic and Korea DPR Women’s National Team will take place at 5:10 pm (6:10 in Japan time). 

Coach and Players' Comments

SASAKI Norio, Coach (Nadeshiko Japan/Japan Women's National Team)
Through the two previous matches in this competition, the players are now beginning to understand how difficult it is to win regardless of their skills and potential. What is important is how much they can do even in this challenging situation. They are actually facing themselves, not China PR. They are the squad players so they are the ones responsible to show their passion and to win the match. 

FW #11   TAKASE Megumi (INAC Kobe)
It’s not that we have to win because we have lost the two previous matches. Nadeshiko Japan always has to win. For the last match, we’ll do our best to win. We haven’t kept our level of play in what we did, such as quick passing, and quality of ball control, it may be because we have been nervous so we want to improve how we start the match.

In the previous matches, we lost the ball and had to get counter attacks quite a lot of times. It is important that we complete offense to defend well, as a FW player I’ll keep this in my mind and do my best. 

Schedule