Official 2026 Nadeshiko Japan Thread [R] - なでしこジャパン（英語スレッド）

Cumulative rankings of all @unepommekun's new games after this game :

1 Unepommekun 710
2 Blissett 565
3 Miora 560
4 Lohmann 420
5 Quango 410
6 Lukephan 320
7 Elstree 270

 

I am very happy about this very good and quite unexpected result (especially after reading what you all guys had written here in the 1st Half! ).

I am not sure if I am going to find the time soon to rewatch the whole game, but I'll sure give a glace at least at the highlights.

 

I see that, at the beginning of today's match, the girls, while posing for the official photo before the game, showed a jersey with the name of Moka Arai on it: so it looks like she's definitely out of the tournament injured.

 

I ended up managing to watch all of the U-20 match vs Australia in the evening.

In the end, the 1st Half wasn't as bad as I feared: it's just that it looked like one of those unnerving games, where our players seem totally unable to find some decent finishing, despite dominating possession and taking control of the midfield. Even the most haralded players seldom managed to frame the goal and anyway most of our few shots were very tame, except one dangerous chance by Mao Itamura, that just went wide by a few inches, and, eventually, the goal (Noa Fukushima's dribbling of her marker was superb there).

The players I liked best in that 1st Half were Miyu Matsunaga, who was already very well focused on the game, way before the two assists she had in the 2nd Half, and Natsumi Tago, who looked like a quite reliable offensive terminal, despite the fact that, totally unfazed by the Yellow Cards, the Aussie players didn't stop manhandling her for the whole half (that foul by their GK in particular was egregious ) and beyond.

Australian goal came mostly against the run of play, it's true, but actually, after the cooling break, they had found some kind of a little possession-spell and had been more aggressive offensively, and it ended up paying, by forcing some mistakes from our defense.

The 2nd Half was different and was a quite dominating performance by Japan (although it has to be said that the opponents looked gassed, probably mostly because of their intense physical effort in the 1st Half): there was just a short reaction by Australia after the 1-2 goal (and then the useless minutes of additional time, when they somehow looked like they believed they could have scored 3 goals in just a few minutes to equalize it ).

Despite the fact that we were in control for most of the 2nd Half, our central defense kept looking shaky at times: what are we going to do against actual dangerous teams?

Anyway, most of the important part of the mission looks like it's been accomplished: not sure if this team can actually win the whole competition, but now the minimal target of qualifying for the World Cup is just within our reach.

 

The next prediction-game about U-20 NT will be especially hard for a reason in particular: we are actually not sure who will start that match and who will play it at all, thus it will be even harder to nail the first scorer and the scorers in general.

On one hand, the match vs Vietnam will be the decider to qualify for the World Cup, so one would expect the most solid line-up; on the other hand, given the level of the opponent, one would be tempted to rest some players to save them for the likely semifinal vs China.

We had very different line-ups so far: the one vs Chinese Taipei had 5 different starters compared to the one vs India; the one vs Australia had 6 different starters compared to the one vs Chinese Taipei and 6 different players compared to the one vs India. The only player who started all three games (I am not sure who would guess it) was Asako Furuta. The only players who didn't see the pitch were Moka Arai (who was officially confirmed by the JFA to have left the tournament for an injury), #22 Momoka Sano and third GK Sako Nawa.
To mention some of our most high-profile players or potential scorers, Noa Fukushima, started vs India and Australia but not vs Chinese Taipei (she anyway played the full 2nd Half of that game); Mao Itamura started vs Chinese Taipei and Australia, but didn't even see the pitch vs India. Natsumi Tago only started vs Australia, although it was a 2nd Half sub (and scorer) in both the other games. Similar destiny for Miyu Matsunaga, although she only scored vs India. Miki Kimura started vs India and Chinese Taipei, but was just a late sub vs Australia (although she managed to score a brace there). And so on.

Maybe, beyond any other prediction, just nailing the exact line-up of Saturday's game would be an achievemetn in itself. It would both need to figure what's our best line-up and if the coach really wants to deploy our best line-up vs Vietnam.