Japan Women's National Team short-listed squad, who are preparing for the final Asian qualifying for the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics, practiced in Okinawa Prefecture on 18 February. It was the final time for the team to have a practical menu in the second training camp.

With boy's high school players as their training partners, the team was divided into the offensive group and defensive group, and then the team was separated into two groups and checked their set plays. They played an intrasquad game for about half an hour in the end. The camp meant to be players selection for the final qualifying team. “It's important to get on the members. I would like to show that I won't get beaten by anyone defensively and definitely make the team,” said defender MURAMATSU Tomoko, who has been on the squad since the first training camp in Ishigaki Island.

Midfielder KAWASUMI Nahomi said “we've been competing hard as much as we have done, and that's the evidence that our focus level is going up. It's our coach's intention how much we can develop our conditions and just between us the players, we're doing things communicating with each other.”

The team will plan to have training focusing on conditioning on the 19th and will start another training camp in Osaka on the 22nd. The Japan team have 10 more day until their first game in the final Asian qualifying against Australia, which will be played at Kincho Stadium on 29 February.

Players' Comments

DF  IWASHIMIZU Azusa (Nippon TV Beleza)
When you have a practical training, you'll find so many different cases, and we've been trying to eliminate our issues and adjust them. Like we share our thoughts by watching videos, or even just one passing practice, we have so many things that we can share between ourselves. I think that we've been able to exchange positive feedbacks among ourselves.

In the qualifying, it's important for you to win three points by any means rather than how we play. In order to do that, we want to hold opponents to zero goals defensively. It's a team game, so we would like to share the pressure with everybody as well.

DF  MURAMATSU Tomoko (Nippon TV Beleza)
I've been called up since the Ishigaki Island training camp, and I feel that my body has reacted better than previously. When you face foreign players, you have to prepare better while you have to have better anticipation of plays during games. Defensively, I want to show that I won't get beaten by anyone and hold our opponents to zero goals. It's important to make the team, so I would definitely like to make the squad for the final qualifying.

Schedule

*Local time
*The schedule is subject to change due to the team condition, the weather, etc.

Asian Qualifiers Final Round (Rio de Janeiro Olympics 2016)

More information