On the morning of the third day, we started with calisthenics and headed to the breakfast venue at 7 AM. Our players are getting used to the local food and are eating more.
We moved to the natural grass venue to participate in the opening ceremony, which began at 8 AM.
The venue was bustling with many people, including players and staff from all teams, tournament officials, and family members. As we lined up and looked at the players from other teams, we had the impression that many of them were quite tall.
At the opening ceremony, after speeches from tournament officials, the venue was enlivened with Chinese-style performances such as dances and fireworks set to music.
Here is the tournament schedule for the preliminary league. There will be live streaming for the tournament, and three of Antlers' preliminary matches were included.
At 10:45 AM, we held a team meeting for the first match of the tournament. Coach Morishima used footage of our previous games to reconfirm our team's offensive and defensive concepts.
After lunch at 11:30 AM, we arrived at the match venue at 1:20 PM. All of Antlers' preliminary league matches will be played on artificial turf.
The players were highly motivated as they prepared for the game, starting with Brazilian calisthenics for their warm-up.
【Tournament Day 1 - Preliminary League - Group C - Match 1 vs. China Jiangyin Middle School (China)】
First Half: 0-0
Second Half: 1-0
Total: 1-0
Starting Lineup:
GK: Shibagaki
FP: Oyama, Kawano, Gorai, Shinbo, Ogura, Otsuka, Sato, Nagayama, Kinoshita, Ito
Substitutions:
Koochi, Shiraishi, Suehara, Yasutsuka, Hayashi
As it was the first match of the tournament, tension affected our play from the start. We struggled to maintain proper distance from opponents after winning the ball, often losing possession, and found ourselves flustered by their aggressive press.
Additionally, the official match ball was a local one, and passes made with our usual kicking power often decelerated, getting caught by opponents and creating dangerous situations.
We gradually adapted to the back-and-forth with the opponent and launched attacks starting from the wings, but we couldn't create clear-cut scoring opportunities.
Conversely, there was a period when the opponent had a series of free kicks and corner kicks, but we managed to hold on defensively and prevent conceding, ending the first half scoreless.
During halftime, Coach Morishima addressed defensive positioning adjustments and pointed out that physical contact plays were likely to be called fouls by the referee.
He instructed forwards and wingers who receive through balls behind the opponent's defense or vertical passes to either hold onto the ball and wait for support from teammates if there's no one around, or try to draw a foul to win a free kick.
At the start of the second half, Kinoshita broke behind the opponent's defense and found himself one-on-one with the goalkeeper, but his shot narrowly missed the goal.
However, in the 2nd minute of the second half, a long ball from center-back Kawano was poorly cleared by the opponent's defender. Kinoshita quickly recovered it and played it to left winger Nagayama. Left-back Shinbo, who reacted to the potential pass to Nagayama, made an overlapping run, creating a 2-on-1 situation, and then played a through pass to Shinbo at full speed. Ito, who had positioned himself in front of the opponent, met Shinbo's cross with his left foot to score the opening goal.
It was a wonderful goal, executed in a way we had practiced in training, and we had decided in our meeting to create 2-on-1 situations on the wings.
After that, we continued to attack, including players who came on as substitutes, trying to score more goals, but we couldn't find the net.
With a one-goal lead, the opponent pressed forward in the last 10 minutes, using long balls to try and equalize, but everyone defended with high awareness and concentration.
For the remaining time, we focused on securing the win by keeping possession near the corner flag to run down the clock and finish the match.
After the match, players who had less playing time did some training.
After dinner at 6 PM, we wrote down our reflections on the day in a notebook and then rested.
On the second day of the tournament, two matches are scheduled for the preliminary league, the 2nd and 3rd rounds.