On 30 January, Japan Futsal National Team faced Colombia, the FIFA Futsal World Cup 2012 semi-finalists, again in the second international friendly held at Osaka Municipal Central Gymnasium, and ended up enjoying the 4-2 victory, helped by the two goals by HENMI Katsutoshi Rafael. The last warm-up matches to play domestically in the run up to the AFC Futsal Championship in Uzbekistan next month finished with the home side’s two straight wins.

Japan made a change to the starters of the first match, where they came back from behind to record a 3-2 win on 27 January in Tokyo. Goalkeeper FUJIWARA Jun replaced SEKIGUCHI Yushi. Japan’s squad were aggressive from the beginning and tried to attack where the opponents defence was not organised yet.

Since the day was already their sixth in Japan, Colombian players also were moving better than the first match. Angellott CARO, Andres REYES and Yulian DIAZ fired shots one after another to threaten Japan, but goalkeeper Fujiwara exhibited remarkable saves and defended the goal behind him.

Japan’s opening goal came right after that, when the clock showed 4:57 into the match. After intercepting the opponents’ ball, the ball was sent to NIBUYA Kazuhiro on the right, who fed it to SAKAI Rafael Yoshio rushing to in front of goal. SAKAI put it home to open the scoring.

The goal energised Japan’s attacking. MORIOKA Kaoru, who scored two goals in the first match, attempted his own shot right after. Then at the 5:52, Morioka made a penetration and created a scoring opportunity for YOSHIKAWA Tomoki, who reacted well and struck it from the middle into the back of the net.

Colombia soon fought back. At the 9:37, the ball was connected from Caro to James CASTILLO and to Diaz, and Diaz cut the deficit to one goal with his goal.

While Luis POVEDA kept leading Colombia’s offence and repeatedly got closer to Japan’s goal, Japan maintained their concentration and effectively blocked Colombia’s attacking.

Early in the second half, Colombia charged fiercely to Japan’s ball and ended up committing a few fouls, one of which gave a free-kick opportunity to Japan’s Henmi a little past the 24th minute. Later, Nibuya tried to meet NISHITANI Ryosuke’s kick-in. Japan showed a dominance in that stretch, but failed to add a goal.

Colombia also created multiple opportunities in the middle and attempted turn-around shots, yet Japan kept their body close to block the efforts.

It was at 29:32 when the match saw another scoring action. Henmi took the ball up in the middle and shot it to extend his team’s lead to two again.

Colombia, trying to avoid losing two in a row, had Wilmar RAMIREZ score the second goal for his team at 31:14. They also kept executing quick attacks and eventually started engaging in power play with 4:18 remaining in the match. Then it led to the second warning and an ejection for Japan’s Yoshikawa.

While Wilmar Ramirez and Yulian Diaz hit the cross bar and the post with their shots for the last few minutes in the match, goalkeeper Fujiwara led Japan’s desperate three-man defence.

Then a minute before the time-up, Japan took the ball and had Henmi struck a long-range shot into unguarded Colombia goal to cement the 4-2 victory.

With two wins over Colombia, Japan now start working toward the AFC Futsal Championship to kick off on 10 February. There, the World Cup spot, which will be awarded to the best five teams in the tournament, and the third consecutive AFC title will be at stake for Japan’s squad.

Match details

Coach and Players' Comments

Miguel RODRIGO, Coach
This was a match where the initiative changed many times. The first 10 minutes was good for us, but for the rest of the half, Colombia took the initiative and we had to survive through it. The second half was a closer one. If we had been able to add up a few more goals after we made it 3-1, we could have sealed the win earlier. But we were tired and we let it be 3-2. Colombia could have tied it when they were executing power play in the end, but I think there was also a luck factor in favour of us.

My players tried to be mentally strong and tried to play it calmly even when they were tired and it was very tough for them to stay focused. So that’s a good takeaway. This is a very important factor in the AFC Futsal Championship. I don’t worry about team tactics and mechanisms. So we want to keep working on getting our conditioning ready and learning how to deal with the man-to-man defence in set-piece situations.

GK #12  FUJIWARA Jun (BARDRAL URAYASU)
Colombia were very skilled individually, so we tried to be focused not to allow a goal before we got one. We were able to defend through when we almost allowed the opening goal, and we had it resulted in our opening goal. It was a shame that we had an ejection moments before the time-up, but it served well as a simulation for the AFC Futsal Championship to defend only with three players in a tensed situation like that. We were able to find where to correct. In the AFC Championship, we are set in a tough group, but we want to get the World Cup ticket first and then go for the third straight title, which only we can target at. I think this team are going toward the right direction.

FP #7  HENMI Katsutoshi Rafael (SL Benfica/Portugal)
We won both matches, and in the second match I was able to score the goal that I was looking to score even in the first match. So I am happy. Speaking of the goal I scored in the end, I shot it because it was wide open in the middle. I was lucky, and also that goal came true because my teammates kept defending so hard until the end. I still feel that my legs are still heavy, but what really matters is the AFC Futsal Championship. We will get enough rest and get back to good training.

FP #9  MORIOKA Kaoru (NAGOYA OCEANS)
I scored two goals in the first match, so they were really cautious of me. But that allowed me to use my teammates more. But I want to play well regardless of the opponents’ pace of doing things, and I want to make plays that opponents don’t want me to make. We need winning now, so today the most important part was that we grabbed the win.

Osma Fonnegra, Coach (Colombia Futsal National Team)
After the first match, we corrected our mobility and ball possession for this match, but we still had many individual mistakes and allowed them to score easy goals. Even so, we were able to play more dynamically overall than the first match. Japan’s strength is that they are a very good team collectively. If they can make it even better, they should achieve a wonderful result in the World Cup.

Schedule

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

AFC Futsal Championship Uzbekistan 2016

Wed. 10 February - Sun. 21 February 2016

More information