Japan National U-17 Team started their training actions for the Sanix International Youth Soccer Tournament 2015 scheduled to kick off on Thursday 19 March at Global Arena in Munakata, Fukuoka. 

This national team enlist players who were born on and after 1 January, 1998 including youngsters who start their high school in this April. Their practice lasted 90 minutes in the evening.

After working on passing and controlling in 20-meter-square areas, they moved on to 3-on-2 in 14-meter squares. Later they had a scrimmage in a full-sized pitch before wrapping up the first day with penalty kick practice altogether.

During the training, head coach Uchiyama occasionally stopped plays and instructed the young players. “In offence, make sure you have good visions and space around you when you receive a ball, and get moving at right moments as you pay attention to your opponents and teammates. In defence, keep in mind that you always do both challenging the ball and covering your teammates. When you are outnumbered, try to position yourself in order to have an equal number of defenders to your opponents.” explained the head coach.

On 18 March, the team will have two training sessions, one each in the morning and afternoon to get prepared for the tournament starting on 19.

Comments

MF 20 SASAKI Takumi（Vegalta Sendai Youth）
We were able to have a good practice on the day one today. Japan have never won the championship in this tournament yet. So we will have everyone get to know each other, and we get united as a team, and we will play for the championship.

FW 9 ITO Ryotaro（Sakuyo High School）
In today’s practice I focused on communicating with my teammates. In football we need to communicate various things with teammates, for example what you want to do and what you want your teammate to do. On this team I have many players I play with for the first time, so I am looking forward to playing with them. During this national team activity, I want to communicate with them more and I want to win the championship in this tournament.

Schedule