SAMURAI BLUE, Japan’s men’s national team, went through training in the morning of 7 January in Cessnock, which is in the outskirts of Newcastle, in preparation for the 2015 AFC Asian Cup. The reigning champion Japan are looking to repeat the title.

One day after they had the entire day off, the team had all the 23 members, adding Kashima Antlers midfielder SHIBASAKI Gaku and Sagan Tosu forward TOYODA Yohei. Shibasaki had been late for an influenza while Toyoda had tried to recover from an illness at the hotel.

Although they had the practice in the morning, the players were forced to train under a high heat of over 30 degrees with a strong summer sunshine. They emphasized on developing their physicality, and went about power-oriented training, such as dashing and jumping holding weights.

They also worked on rotating passes becoming triangles with those who play at nearby positions and practiced on offensive and defensive battles in front of the goal from crosses. ``I strongly feel that you are asked to kick crosses with better qualities,’’ defender SAKAI Gotoku said. ``Not just against the Asian countries, but against anyone you have better chances of scoring when you have better crosses, so I want to be particular about it, too.’’

Shibasaki, who landed in Australia in the 6th, said of his first day with the squad there, ``It wasn’t as hot as I’d thought, which was good. I don’t think my moves were bad, so overall I felt pretty good out there.’’
For the training, about 50 students of Hunter Japanese Community School in Newcastle visited and took a photo with the players with smiles on the pitch before session started. There were a 13-year-old older brother and his 9-year-old sister, who came from Central Coast, and the brother said he was a fan of HASEBE Makoto, of Eintracht Frankfurt, and the sister insisted that she liked KAGAWA Shinji, of Borussia Dortmund. The brother and sister seemed very excited to be able to be in the same photo frame with the team.

The Japan team will continue to practice there until the 8th, and then move to Newcastle, the site for their first match of the tournamnent against Palestine. The contest will be played on the 12th.

Comments

DF SHIOTANI Tsukasa (Sanfrecce Hiroshima)
I spent my time relaxing, doing some stuff like reading a book, at the hotel. We got the whole day off to refresh, and I think that we need to take a fresh start from here for the AFC Asian Cup. Ever since the members for the tournament were announced, I’ve only thought about nothing but winning the AFC Asian Cup. In a tournament like this, you are going to need the help from all the members, not just 11 players. We need to adapt to the heat first and then tune up for the tournament.

DF SAKAI Gotoku (VfB Stuttgart)
I’ve strongly felt that the players on the sides are asked to have better crosses recently. I think that Japanese players are good at agility, possessing the ball and its accuracy, and how much we can do that on the sides will give us further patterns for our offensive options. I think that when we have better communication between the players on the sides and in the middle of the field, we have better chances to score, so it’s very important for us to elaborate our combinations as much as we can. I want the players in the middle to be aware that the players on the sides always look to feed crosses, and the players on the sides need to be aware that the players inside are always coming in in front of the goal. The more men we have inside, the more effective our crosses will be, so I want to focus on that too.

MF ENDO Yasuhito (Gamba Osaka)
There’s one week to play our first game, so we need to buckle up mentally and proceed with even better atmosphere from here on. Once the tournament begins, things go quickly and if you drop one, it put you in a difficult situation. So it will be important for us to take a good start. In the practices from here on, we are going to have more tactical parts as well, so we want to get in the tournament with the best possible status we can be in.

MF HASEBE Makoto (Eintracht Frankfurt)
The attacks from the sides are our issues. We’ve been pointed out that our crossing have not been very good even in our domestic games. But it won’t work well any more that you just launch crosses while other guys get inside. Against the Asian teams, how much we can create better situations in the sides and then score from those will be our focus.

GK HIGASHIGUCHI Masaaki (Gamba Osaka)
I like it to be in a warm place and I’ve accustomed to the head down here pretty much. On the off day yesterday, I had a relaxing day, taking a walk in the hotel facilities. For today, we went through some power-oriented practice and worked on some situations of offensive and defensive battles in front of the goal, but we only used a smaller area. But it’s going to be wider and wider from here on and once we have our own formations firmly, I think then we will really feel like we are getting into games. I think that today was Day 1 to establish it.

JFA-TV

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