The Head Coach of Nadeshiko Japan, SASAKI Norio participated in the official press conference held on the day before the match against New Zealand which is for the MS&AD NADESHIKO CUP 2015. The press conference was held at Marugame Stadium in Kagawa, which is where the match will take place. Mr. Sasaki expressed his gratitude at the beginning to the local people in Marugame where the team’s training camp held and told his expectation “We will regard New Zealand as the Swiss whom we will play against in the first match of the FIFA Women’s World Cup Canada 2015 and we just want to get 3 winning points tomorrow”. 

The team’s training was shown for the first 15 minutes to media and the players were divided into field players and goalkeepers for the first session. As Kinga Yukari says, “the team’s atmosphere is pretty good”, the team looks well united for the coming match. 

New Zealand is joining the World Cup for the 4th time as the Oceania champion. Their FIFA world ranking is 17th place as of 27 of March. Nadeshiko Japan, who is ranked in 4th, has a better record against New Zealand with 5 wins and 1 draw. But most of the previous matches were very close games with only 1 goal between 2 teams. “If we can make a good result tomorrow, it will be encouraging for us going in to the World Cup”, passionately says Mr. Tony Readings, the Head Coach of New Zealand.

Nadeshiko Japan had the match like this match in Shikoku, where Marugame Stadium is, 4 years ago when they won the World Cup in Germany. We expect them to win the match today to get ready for the up-coming World Cup.
Nadeshiko Japan’s match against New Zealand will be kicked-off at 7:10 pm tonight.

Head Coach and Players' Comments

SASAKI Norio, Head Coach of Nadeshiko Japan
For the World Cup, I chose the players who can compete well. In this training camp, each of the players has shown us good plays with passion. They are competing well to get the positions for the World Cup. New Zealand has similarities to the Swiss such as height, speed, and how they build up themselves. We will play against them as if this is the first match of the World Cup. We will try some new system and new players and we hope they will contribute to the victory tomorrow.

MF ＃8   MIYAMA Aya (Okayama Yunogo Belle)
New Zealand is said to be similar team to Switzerland. Tomorrow, I will keep that in mind well. I will also try not to make any careless mistakes while challenging well while also not being afraid of making mistakes. We want to find out our positives from this match.

DF ＃2   KINGA Yukari (INAC Kobe)
We have been able to communicate with each other well in this training camp and our defense is getting much better. We tried “5 people in defense” yesterday in the training and we haven’t applied that strategy yet but we have found that we can actually put 5 people in defense as a result of the practice session. It is good for us that we are gaining options at this occasion.

MF ＃14   TANAKA Asuna (INAC Kobe)
In this camp, I just wanted to show one of my strengths that I can calmly move the ball round even at building up moments. Currently, what I prefer is showing how much I can do toward what the team and the Head Coach expect me to do, rather than thinking about which position I want or what kind of play I want to show. When I play in the last line at the match against New Zealand, I will want to keep high motivation to defend well and move the front players well. 

Tony READINGS, the Head Coach of New Zealand
Since Japanese people always welcome us very warmly, we all looked forward to coming here in this opportunity. We have chased Nadeshiko Japan, dreaming about being a wonderful team like them for a long time. I think we have got to be much closer to them comparing to how we used to be. This match will be the last one before the World Cup for us. We just want to use this match as a rehearsal for the World Cup, and it would be wonderful if this could be a rehearsal for the final of the World Cup against Japan. 

JFA-TV(Japanese version only)

MS&AD NADESHIKO CUP 2015

Nadeshiko Japan(Japan Women's National Team) vs. New Zealand Women's National Team
Sun. 24 May 19:10 Kick Off (Estimated Time)
Kagawa / Kagawa Pref. Marugame Stadium
Ticket Information (Japanese version only)

Live broadcasting across Japan by Fuji-TV Group

KIRIN CHALLENGE CUP 2015

Nadeshiko Japan(Japan Women's National Team) vs. Italy Women’s National Football Team
Thu. 28 May 19:20 Kick Off (Estimated Time)
Nagano / MINAMI NAGANO SPORTSPARK
Ticket Information (Japanese version only)

FIFA Women’s World Cup Canada 2015

Information