Group Stage 2nd match of the 12th Delle Nazioni Tournament
U-16 Japan National Team vs. U-16 England National Team
2015-4-26 (Sun.) - 14:00    Playing time: 70min (35min ×2)
Venue: Lignano, Italy

U-16 Japan National Team   1-1 (1st 0-0, 2nd 1-1)   U-16 England National Team

Scores
61'　Goal against (England)
62'　TANAKA Kosuke (Japan)

Line-ups
GK: WAKAHARA Tomoya
DF: TANAKA Riku, NAKAGAWA So, HASHIOKA Daiki, TANAKA Riku
MF: SATO Subaru, FUJIMOTO Kanya, ITO Hiroki, HIRAKAWA Rei
FW: HASHIMOTO Jin, TAGAWA Kyosuke

Substitutes
GK: TAKASE Kazuna
DF: SENBA Taishi, KEMMOTSU Takumu, NAKAYA Yuki
MF: NAKANO Yuta, YOSHIDA Shun, SUMIDA Sho
FW: SUGIURA Fumiya, NAKAMURA Shunta

HT　 HASHIMOTO Jin　→　NAKAMURA Shunta
41'　TAGAWA Kyosuke　→　SUGIURA Fumiya

Match Report

The 2nd match of the elimination round for Japan was against England. England, who was beaten by Italia National Team 1-3 in the first match, actively moved the ball to attack Japan, who beat Saudi Arabia National Team in the previous match. On the other hand, Japan took possession of the ball from England through pressing defense, and tried to attack their goal from crosses. However both teams didn’t score and the 1st half ended with 0-0.

In the 2nd half, both teams tried to take ball possession in the middle and attacked each other. On the 61st minute, England broke through Japan’s right wing with dribbling and made a cross, and another player at the opposite side successfully scored by rushing onto the ball. On the 62nd minute, Japan equalised right after England’s first goal by TANAKA Kosuke’s chip shot, receiving the ball in the right wing from the kick-off and kept dribbling into the centre on his own.
After this, the game became a seesaw battle between the two teams. In the end of the match, ITO Hiroki dribbled to break through England’s defense and made 1 vs. 1 situation with the opponent’s GK, but his shot was blocked. Japan could not get another goal and the 2nd match ended with 1-1.

Click here for the details of this match (Japanese version only) 

Players’ Comments

TAGAWA Kyosuke (Sagan Tosu U-18)
Personally I could have had better combination with HASHIMOTO. I want to calm down more when I get the ball. I could make a shot, but there’s no meaning if I can’t score, so I want to be more consistent to get victories from the next match. As a team, we should have moved more quickly considering England cut our passes several times. We want to play with good sense of prediction about what will happen next. We just want to win each game, doing our best.

WAKAHARA Tomoya (Kyoto Sanga F.C. U-18)
Today, we did well at the beginning of the match. We had a good level of concentration especially in communication for defense and paying attentions to the balls which came behind us. We had some times that we passed the ball to the players who weren’t ready to receive the ball, so in the next match I want to pass the ball to the players who are already moving to get my ball. When England scored, we could have saved it if we changed our defense position responding to the cross, so I want to adjust my position more quickly to save our goal. As a team, we will get ready for the victory in the next match.

SATO Subaru (Vissel Kobe U-18)
Today, I paid attention to where I started defending, how much I minimise the distance from the opponents, and speed. They were the issues I found in the previous match. I could share these issues with my teammates and we actually could take the ball in good ways sometimes. However, we often gave up possession to England which we previously got from them. Tomorrow, we will play against Italy. We want to win the game by taking a lead in both defense and offense, paying good attention to making a good form of attack after stealing the ball from Italy.

HIRAKAWA Rei (F.C. Tokyo U-15 Musashi)
It was such a shame that we drew the match regardless of the many scoring chances we had. What I tried personally was to move well considering good timing. I know that I had only few times that I could do well, so I need to improve more through the future training. I also noticed that I couldn’t be flexible by changing my play according to their their defense style, so I want to pay more attention to what I should do in the next match.

Schedule

*Local time

The 12th Delle Nazioni Tournament

Future Schedule