Official 2020 Nadeshiko Japan Thread [R] - なでしこジャパン（英語スレッド）

It's a lot of time I don't rewatch the games from 2011, but back then I had watched them repeatedly to the point of almost knowing them by heart.

There's absolutely no doubt that defense won that WWC to us. I said it back then and I say it again.

There were multiple aspects to it. One was that we had a solid block of players that were reliable and didn't change around during the 6 matches of the tournament: no fiddling with different solutions. From right to left it was Kinga-Iwashimizu-Kumagai-Sameshima all the time: most of these players almost played every single minute of the World Cup (I remember Sameshima for sure literally did; Iwashimizu probably would have if she hadn't been sent-off in the last two minutes of the final match). We were able to try different line-ups in the midfield and in the forward line, where we could sometimes recur to super-subs as Maruyama or "baby" Iwabuchi, but we never had different starters in defense and not even subs for most of the time, not even in the last stages of the single games. I mean, our main alternate in defense back then, Kyoko Yano, was, if I remember well, the only player in the 21 players' roster who didn't play a single minute in that tournament along with the reserve GKs (incidentally: we had excellent alternate GKs in Fukumoto and Yamago, but Sasaki decided to trust Kaihori for all of the length of the tournament, that's unusual for a Nadeshiko NT, and was rewarded with the best overall performance posted by Ayumi in her whole career).

We had Kinga and Sameshima in their primes, not only able to neatly defend but also to powerfully overlap on their respective sides in an era when the 4-4-2 was the go-to strategy. Iwashimizu was as solid and experienced as she's ever been (4 years later she would have been destroyed in the 2015 final, but in 2011 she was as reliable as you get) and a young Kumagai, at 20, flourished at the exact perfect moment to form a match-made-in-heaven-level CB duo with Azusa (it's not a case that Saki was consistently playing in defense, at the time, in Urawa and in Frankfurt, and not in the midfield as she currently does in OL).

Given how much we were relying on a so special defense, quite magically peaking at its form, as single players and as a unit, in that precise moment in time, we sure were very lucky that no-one of our Defenders picked serious injuries during that WWC. To give you a rough idea of how important each of them was, Saki Kumagai was coming from a head-injury, but she played every minute of the first match vs New Zealand with a big headband (and she wasn't anyway shy of contact with other players: don't remember if she kept any kind of medication in the subsequent match vs Mexico, but probably just some big plaster at max)! I can tell you: had we lost any of these key-defensive players anywhere along the way, I am quite sure we wouldn't have lifted the cup.

And there were some kind of heroics to that group of players: I remember Iwashimizu describing almost every match (especially the ones vs Germany and USA) as some kind of "storm" (don't remember if it was the exact word, but something similar), where the players had to toughen up and rely on each other as a unit for countless minutes without respite, encouraging each other along the way, and pining for any moment of breath ahead. It was a very stoic narrative and I guess it said a lot about that team.

Bonus for anyone who read me so far: Saki Kumagai wearing her headband vs New Zealand :

 

I just rewatched Sawa's assist for Maruyama in that match: a piece of art.

 

Courtesy of @sbahnhof, from the Spanish League and WNT thread, news about the teams having our Nadeshiko players in their rosters:

So our Maya Yamamoto got a 4th place in the league with her Deportivo, and both Yoko Tanaka with Huelva and Ayaka Noguchi with Espanyol are safe from relegation.

It needed a cataclysm of historical proportions hitting the whole world to save Noguchi's club from relegation: if, pre-Covid-19, anyone would have predicted that Espanyol was going to play the next season in Primera División Femenina, everyone else would have said it was an impossible proposition.

 

I was there!!!

What's the time of the match here in Europe? I would gladly rewatch the match that I actually never watched on TV (just highlights) since I was there in Faro. It could have happen that I manage to watch myself on the standings!

 

In other news: another European League, after Spanish one, has officially closed its season:

So, for what concerns Nadeshiko players, Saki Kumagai is once again French champion with OL (although I am sure she would have preferred to play until the end what had revealed to be one of the most closely contested French leagues in the latest years, with PSG just 3 points behind).

 

Should be 12:00 here in Italy, shouldn't it? I am afraid I am going to miss First Half, because I'll be teaching on-line at one of my classes until 12:30, but after that I should be able to enjoy the match. Don't won't to "spoiler" the final result , but I remember that the most import half was the second one.

 

@sbahnhof correctly re-posted on the Division 1 thread the highlights of what's has effectively been the deciding match of the season: OL-PSG with goal from our Saki Kumagai :

 

I finished my video-lessons for my school. Is the game still on or it's finished by now? Has anyone a link? I can't seem to find it on JFA channel.

 

Ok, I guess I officially missed the game, mainly because I am not smart enough to actually understand how to find the match on JFA-TV.

Can I hope the game will remain available so I can watch it later?

 

Oh, the Momiki-Hasegawa duo will separate! Their chemistry on the pitch has always been so special!