In preparation for the tournament, we've been narrowing down our squad since the start of this season and competing in the IFA League and Kashima Festival.
After breakfast, we took a walk and did some exercises, then had a meeting and lunch to prepare for the match.
<Tournament Day 1 Group B Match vs Hebei China Fortune FC U-17 15:30 Kick-off>
First Half 0-1
Second Half 1-0
Total 1-1
Scorer: Ito
Starting Lineup:
GK Chiba
FP Okita, Ishii, Fukuhara, Kobayashi, Ishizu, Murayama, Fuchigami, Funazaki, Iizuka, Kikuchi
Substitutes: Taniguchi, Ito
The match progressed with us largely dominating possession from the first half. However, in the 10th minute of the first half, a cleared ball was picked up by the opponent, and they capitalized on that momentary lapse to score.
Even after that, we continued to dominate possession and pressed toward the opponent's goal, but we couldn't score. We created decisive chances from corner kicks and by breaking through the defensive line, but our shots were often straight at the goalkeeper, and we lacked the finishing touch to score.
In the 35th minute of the second half, after a substitution changed the flow of the game, substitute Ito picked up a loose ball from a cross from the right, calmly bypassed an opponent, and scored.
Even after equalizing, we had more chances, but the final whistle blew without us being able to score again.
The opposing coach was Mr. Nishimura, a Japanese national who used to belong to G Osaka. Kitamura, our former GK coach from the youth development department, also coached as the goalkeeper coach. Furthermore, the opposing team is the former club of Chen, a Chinese national player currently practicing with our youth team.
During the meeting after dinner, we analyzed footage of tomorrow's opponent, Atletico Madrid.
Our second match kicks off at 10:00.