Empress' Cup - 1st round day 1 - Saturday Morning Waseda Uni vs Izumo Kibi vs YGU Niigata Uni H&W vs Kanagawa Uni Dr Hiroshima vs Fujizakura Speranza vs Bunnys Afternoon Ichihara vs Consadole Orca vs Mynavi Youth Harima vs Tokoha Uni Tachibana HS Kamimura HS vs JFA There's no news of any livestreaming or even Highlights. There is 2 games being shown on TV, Semis. The first, Match number 45, will be shown live. The second, Match number 46, will be shown late night Sunday. It's being shown so late it's actually very early Monday morning. The time of the broadcast is taken from a JFA only clock which seems to have more than 24 hours. 24:15? https://www.jfa.jp/match/empressscup_2025/tv.html
Oh yes, I remember that video. I assume for teams like Viama, Izumo, Ehime and Imabari, the trips might be tough : costly, long Regina are usually doing winter and summer camps in Miyazaki prefecture. I know they ride the Shinkansen to go there because they did some posts on social media. But Kyushu is closer than Tohoku or maybe even Kanto.
I could shut up and exploit the advantage, but it would seem unfair to me. Correct me if I am wrong, but I am under the impression that, since NWSL's play-off will start this week-end and Washington Spirit are the only team in them who have a Japanese player in their roster (Narumi Miura), Manaka Matsukubo's North Caroline Courage and Jun Endo's Angel City FC won't play this week (or, at least, won't play official matches that are going to count for our game).
Oh, I didn't notice that. Really thank you for your fairness. So, it's not too late, we three (Miora, Lohmann and I) can change the entries. I change Matsukubo to Hasegawa.
Today's result: WE League Albi (Shinbori) 1-0 Jef Urawa (Takahashi) 1-2 Inac (Narumiya, Mizuno) Regina 0-2 Mynavi (Miura, Tsuda)
Empress' Cup - 1st round day 1 - Results DR Hiroshima 0-1 Fujizakura (Wakita) Waseda Uni 0-1aet Izumo (Maruo) Niigata Uni H-W (Kimata) 1-1aet 5-4pk Kanagawa Uni (O'Reilly) Speranza (Tanimoto, Uenishi, Matsunaga) 3-3aet 2-4pk Bunnys (Kimura x2, Kiryu) Kamimura HS 0-7 JFA (Fukushima x2, Kitajima, Hanashiro, Sakaki, Matsui, Matsumoto) Orca (Ueda, Matsuo, Kouno x2) 4-0 Mynavi Youth Kibi 0-1 YGU (Kashii) Ichihara (Takeda, Sato, Murakami, Jyokura, Masuda, Ishii) 6-0 Consadole Harima (Shiino, Chiba, Kokusho) 3-0 Tokoha Uni Tachibana HS ------------------------------------- Speranza (Tanimoto, Uenishi, Matsunaga) Tanimoto will retire Uenishi will leave Speranza Matsunaga will transfer to Nagoya ------------------------------------- Empress' Cup - 1st round day 2 -Sunday Morning Nittaidai vs Veertien OSA vs Sakuyo Ehima vs Imabari Afternoon Nippatsu vs Migocarisa Setagaya vs Menina Belle vs Nihon Uni Otemon Gakuin Uni vs Shikoku Uni Eagles
The way JEF play at times is so boring. It is quite nice to watch when it all comes together, but when it does not it is like watching paint dry. I only watched the first-half and it was quite tedious. I honestly thought both teams would play out a 0-0 draw. This game was a belter! If only the rest of the world could see the top two teams in the competition playing entertaining and technical football. Narumiya's goal was excellent and it came from some fantastic pressure from her. She drifted in and out of the match, but she made some really decisive plays late in the game when Hirakawa came off. INAC were much better in the first-half than Urawa and probably should have been up by two goals, but for some nice saves by Ikeda. I am sure INAC will be very happy with the win, because I think they needed it. Unfortunately during the game Haruna Aikawa went down with what looked like a very bad injury. I hope it is not serious, but it did not look good. If she is out for a considerable amount of time I think INAC will struggle a bit more in the latter part of the season. Narumiya, Yoshida and Aikawa really help out their midfield, so if Aikawa is injured then Narumiya and Yoshida pose less of a problem for defenders. If INAC go on to win the league and Nadeshiko continue to play poorly I could see Miyamoto becoming the next manager of Nadeshiko. Shimada continues to impress me. She did not score but played very well in my opinion. Obviously HIroshima was not too far for Mynavi! They are now 4 points clear of fifth and only 3 points behind Beleza for third. It has been a remarkable turnaround this season. I will remind you how bad they were. Last season: They finished last by 8 points. Conceded 52 goals, which is the worst in WE League history. Scored a total of 15 goals which was equal lowest for the season. This season they just look completely different. The strange thing is Mynavi kept their manager, Jun Sunaga from last season. Fair play to the board for keeping the faith. I really thought Mynavi would struggle this season due to the loss of Nakashima and Sumida, but maybe they were the problem?
I don't know about it. But I thought the same thing about Nagoya's victory in Nadeshiko League. Miura and Hasegawa (last year's Nadeshiko League best 11) retired this year.
Should anyone know anything more about Haruna Aikawa's injury, please let us know: she's indeed a key player for INAC and it would be a shame if she had to sit out for long.
I know what you mean, but Nagoya were at least a good team last season whereas Mynavi were terrible. Nothing indicated to me at the start of the season they would be sitting in fourth after 13 rounds of play. I am starting to think Satsuki Miura is a big reason for their success.
Noa Fukushima, today, could have played the final of the U-17 WWC: instead she's already back in Japan and she had to settle with an ordinary Empress' Cup's clash: at least she scored a brace, but she would have preferred to score it in a World Cup final. I am always happy when my old friend Sonoko Chiba scores. Maybe @Manchester Nadeshiko remembers that, when we met at an Algarve cup from many years ago, she was part of the Senior National Team (I guess it was the only time she was in the roster). Also: Speranza always scored first, in today's game: twice in the regular time and once in extra-time, but they allowed Bunnys to come back every time and then they lost at the penalty shootout. This result sets up for a derby in the next round, between Albirex Niigata and Niigata University of Health and Welfare. This is also interesting, not only because it sets up for a clash between VONDS Ichihara FC Ladies, the winners of Nadeshiko League 2 by a big margin, vs a top-WE League team, Sanfrecce Hiroshima Regina (who are anyway currently having a bad spell), but also because VONDS started being a sensation when last year they managed to reach the Round of 16 of the Empress' Cup despite not being in Nadeshiko League 2 yet and because in that edition of the Empress' Cup it was indeed Sanfrecce who eliminated them, but it wasn't easy, since they won by 3-2 in extra-time after the regular time had ended on a 2-2 draw. VONDS will be looking for a revenge!
Not only did Mynavi travel to Hiroshima for their game on Saturday but DR Hiroshima travelled to Sendai for their Empress' Cup game on the same day.
AFC Women's Chamiopns League group C. 15:00 local time (8:30 GMT/UTC) (JPN) Tokyo Verdy Beleza - Naegohyang (PRK) 19:00 loccal time (12:30 GMT/UTC) (KOR) Suwon - ISPE (MYA) (H)
Empress' Cup - 1st round day 2 - Results Nittaidai (Shinoda, Nishikori) 2-0 Veertien OSA (Kato x3, Suzuki x3) 6-0 Sakuyo Ehime (og, Yasuda) 2-1 Imabari (Ikezaki) Nippatsu (Matsumoto, Muroi x2, Tamura, Honda) 5-0 Migocarisa Setagaya (Horie x2, Aoki) 3-1 Menina (Nishio) Belle 0-2 Nihon Uni (Shibota, Iwabuchi) Otemon Gakuin Uni (Yano) 1-0 Shikoku Uni Eagles
Did it just start? I am not sure I will have the time to follow it entirely, but I'll sure give a look from time to time, along the morning.