The “JFA Football Future Programme, training centre course U-12”, in which all the participating players and coaches of the U-12 training centre across the country gathered together, was held during a five-day four-night stay from 29 July to 2 August in TOKI NOSUMIKA and the TOKINOSUMIKA SPORTS CENTRE.

On the morning of the third day of the programme, the participants played a Quattro game, which was a four-on-four mini game without goalkeepers. They had several games to get their total scores and points. The team changes every time, so that they could get to know each other.

The players got on well quickly with the players they had never met before from other prefectures, and put in a lively performance.

In the afternoon, MINAGAWA Yusuke from Sanfrecce Hiroshima in the J.League and the former Japan international KITAZAWA Tsuyoshi joined the programme. They shared their experiences of everyday life as well as in football when they were elementary school pupils, including how they trained themselves and what to aim at.

The participants were divided into their respective prefectural groups in the morning of the forth day to hold a training session. They focused on improving their tasks in preparation for the matches in the afternoon.

All the team gathered at the TOKINOSUMIKA SPORTS CENTRE and played games against each other. The players showed no fatigue and played hard.

NAKAYAMA Masao, the JFA National Training Centre Coach and the associate professor at University of Tsukuba, gave a lecture for the guardians about “how to raise independent children” in the training room. He explained psychologically-based terms in everyday words, and the participating guardians listened to his lecture very enthusiastically.

The players had matches on the last day. They played as hard as possible both in attack and defence, so that they could show what they had learned during the four-day training course.

At the closing ceremony, all the players as well as the coaches got together to share what each had achieved and what each had left to be improved in these five days. They promised to see each other again on the pitches before leaving the site.

Although a five-day session is not a long period, the players across the country learned a lot through living under one roof, practicing and playing games together on the pitch.