U-18 Japan’s national team had training in the morning and afternoon on the second day of their training camp. In the morning, at hotel before leaving for their training site, the squad worked on stretching and body balance exercises under Conditioning Coach OGAI Tomohiro’s instruction. And then, they moved to their practice field and went through training with the ball such as a 6v6 with goalkeepers and an 8v7 with goalkeepers. While the offensive side focused on improving the proper distance, which illustrates positioning of those with the ball and those without it, the defensive side tried to improve positioning for when they are outnumbered.

In the afternoon, the young Japan team had an 11v11 game-style practice, simulating tomorrow’s training match. Head Coach Uchiyama halted plays at times to adjust players’ positioning and also reviewed positioning on throw-ins and set pieces.

In a meeting after dinner just as yesterday, they were lectured about how to deal with media interviews and how to send information via social media. The players watched a video about top young athletes of their generation being interviewed and learned a lot about comments and behaviours.

Players’ Comments

NODA Hiroki (Otsu High School)
The second day of the camp had training sessions in the morning and the afternoon. Both sessions included game-style training and we were able to train just like we were playing a real match. And we are successful in sharing our playing styles and ideas through meetings and communications between players, so we will keep working on it. At night, we had a lecture about SNS. Not only on the pitch, I will be aware that I am looked as a national team player off the pitch as well and will be careful of my words. Tomorrow we have a training match against Nippon Sport Science University. To wrap up the camp with a good result, we will work hard on it.

FUNAKI Kakeru (Cerezo Osaka U-18)
In today’s practice, we tried to pass the ball to the player who started moving. In the morning, we had training on winning the ball in an outnumbered situation such as 8v7 situation by solving that kind of disadvantage in a particular area. When to approach to win the ball and to how close we get to the ball, we need to work on a bit more. On top of better prediction and various judgements to make, I want to be able to win the balls. In tomorrow’s match, we will share with teammates when to approach the ball, and I want to bring out my strength as well.

NAGANUMA Yoichi (Sanfrecce Hiroshima Youth)
This camp has been held in a short period only for three days. We don’t have so much time to practice together as a team, but even so we can share each one of understanding and have training in a good atmosphere. In today’s training, we had a good spell with common understanding among us while working on build-up, attacking initiation, penetration and finishing. Tomorrow we have a training match against Nippon Sport Science University. We will have a good picture for it, share it with teammates and devote ourselves in both offence and defence to win the match.

WATANABE Tsuyoshi (Chuo University)
I’m honoured to be here for my first call-up. We had body trunk training indoors, and on the pitch, we went through tactics such as how to break through the opponents and set plays for the Nippon Sport Science University match tomorrow. I found my weakness in the trunk training and made clear what to work on from now on. In the training on the pitch, we practiced with the concept to break through the opponents by taking advantage of the players moving around. The training was at a high level. In tomorrow’s match, I will play without any hesitation, not caring about that I’m called up for the first time.

Schedule

Future Schedule