On the last day of Korea trip, U-18 Japan National Team had training sessions at the Paju National Training Centre which Korea Football Association owns. This Training Centre has multiple grounds, a clubhouse and a restaurant and the players had a good training session in a good environment.

Since the team had matches on two consecutive days, the training was only for one hour which included warm-up, 4-on-2, a mini half pitch game which had a restriction that the players could touch the ball only twice during the game.

After the practice match the players visited the Seoul World Cup Stadium to watch the AFC Champions League 1st leg of the round 16, FC Seoul vs. Gamba Osaka. It was a good stimulating opportunity for the players to watch how Japanese club team plays overseas.

The training camp was only four days, but the team had a beneficial time having various training sessions and practice matches in the different environment of South Korea.

Head Coach and Players’ Comments

UCHIYAMA Atsush, Head Coach
This was the first time for us to have a training camp outside of Japan and since we didn’t have any official matches like before, we could concentrate well on checking our team vision and preparation for the qualifying stage of the AFC U-19 Championships. We also had a good chance to have a practice match against a Korean team; it is indeed good to have a match in South Korea, one of the strongest Asian countries. Gradually, the players understand each other better than before and they also have stronger sense of competition within the team. I keep telling the players where we have to move on to as a team for the qualifying stage of the AFC U-19 Championship. We will work hard to get good results in our future official matches.

SAKAI Daisuke (Oita Trinita)
Every time we had practice matches, we worked well both in offense and defense. However we know that we have to improve our quality. We have such a limited time before the qualifying stage of the AFC U-19 Championship, so it is very important for us to share what we want to do well with each other.

NAKAYAMA Yuta (Kashiwa Reysol)
At this camp, I had a lot of lessons learned. Even though we won the two practice matches here, we still have a lot to improve. I got to notice the importance of making effort to have a communal understanding with each other within the team even though we have such a limited time to be together. I found some issues for myself like making better teamwork with other players in the same line. For the future, we have to communicate well with each other and make more effort to maximise everybody’s strengths in our play.

KUNIMOTO Takahiro (Avispa Fukuoka)
Through this camp in South Korea, we have more communal understandings each other. What I will take with me from this camp is what head coach UCHIYAMA stressed that we have to keep moving even when we receive the ball. Reflecting upon myself in the previous matches here, I had more time to stop and receive the ball. However, there were also good plays so we just want to make the good things better and to improve our disadvantages by having discussions with each other as a team. I will keep working hard in my own club team and I hope I can come back to the National Team again.

DOAN Ritsu (Gamba Osaka Youth)
In this camp, we had two practice matches for two consecutive days and it was good that we could win these matches. However, I got to know that we still have more to improve ourselves. As head coach UCHIYAMA told us to keep working hard and improving our play both in quality and quantity, we still have to work hard for these issues in our daily trainings. In the evening of 20 May, we had the chance to watch my club team’s match for AFC Champions League. It was good to watch my team win the match and we also learned what we need as a team such as quality of play, physical strength, and shooting accuracy. I will keep working hard in my club team and doing my best to be selected as a squad player.

Schedule

Future Schedule