Academy Report

The morning of the quarterfinals has arrived. Like yesterday, it was a hot and humid day. To prepare for the 10:00 AM kickoff, we took an early morning walk, had breakfast, and then held a meeting.During the meeting, we reviewed yesterday's performance and confirmed our tactics for the match against the K-League All-Stars. Coach Nakamura confirmed offensive and defensive tactics, discussed battles for possession, and emphasized the importance of substitute players, after which we headed to the venue.The venue for today's match is the SIMIN Ground, which was used as a training camp and practice facility by the Slovenian national team during the 2002 FIFA World Cup Korea/Japan.

Quarterfinals: Antlers 0-1 Korea League All-Stars (Korea)
First half 0-1, Second half 0-0
[Members]
GK: Taiyo Suzuki
FP: Shotaro Taniguchi (67 min. Kodai Taniguchi), Sora Okita, Tatsuya Kiuchi, Yuta Yamaguchi (67 min. Yuto Koide), Hikaru Shimano, Ryunosuke Ito (59 min. Fushin Owaki), Kaiyo Yanagimachi, Kai Ishizu (50 min. Ryoma Minowa), Rintaro Umetsu, Hikaru Iizuka (HT Kakeru Miyauchi)

Against the physically strong and fast K-League All-Stars, we aimed to counter with organized defense. In the 5th minute, a cross from our left flank into the center resulted in a header, putting us behind 0-1 early on.
After that, we adapted to the opponent's speed and strength, and our work rate surpassed theirs. We defended tenaciously, putting our bodies on the line to prevent clear chances. In attack, we put many crosses into the goal area from both flanks, but the timing was off, and we couldn't score.

At halftime, Coach Nakamura instructed the players: "We're one goal down, but the opponent's work rate is decreasing, so we'll definitely have chances. Stay calm and fight in the second half."
From the start of the second half, we took control of the game against the tiring opponent and created chances. We had shots inside the penalty area, but couldn't hit the target. The game entered its final stages without a goal, and despite creating numerous chances from the flanks, we ultimately failed to score, and the match ended.Coach Nakamura's comment:
"We went into the quarter-final match against the K-League All-Stars intending to actively take action and fight to overcome the heat, their physical size, and any disadvantage. However, we again conceded a goal in the 5th minute from a marking error that we had warned about. We moved the ball and, when the opponent's legs started to tire, we took the initiative and got close to their goal, but we continued to face their individual strength at the end and the intensity of their counter-attacks, and we couldn't score a goal until the end.
Neither yesterday nor today were easy opponents to beat, but it's unfortunate because there's so much to gain from beating such opponents. We thought we had prepared well in Japan, but there were still many naive aspects, and we keenly felt that we needed to be more creative and work harder than our rivals to stand a chance against overseas players of the same age who aspire to become professionals. We want to apply this to tomorrow's match."

In the evening, we went to watch the quarter-final match between Sporting Lisbon and Newcastle. It was a high-level match between European teams, and we saw many players with extremely high individual skills who didn't make mistakes even under pressure.We returned to the hotel, had dinner, reviewed today's match footage in a meeting, and then went to bed to prepare for tomorrow.Tomorrow, it will be a match between Japanese teams.

The ranking match, Antlers vs. Yokohama F. Marinos Oppama, will kick off at 17:00.