U-20 Women's World Cup kick off tomorrow

Japan Squad for U-20 Women’s World Cup

GK
KOBAYASHI Shiori 1988.05.20 168 ㎝ 60 kg

SUGAWARA Misa 1988.05.25 170 ㎝ 65 kg

YAMANE　Erina 1990.12.20 187 ㎝ 76 kg
DF
ISOKANE Midori 1988.10.29 165 ㎝ 56 kg

YANAI Rina 1989.04.20 165 ㎝ 59 kg
OSAFUNE Kana 1989.10.16 169 ㎝ 55 kg

KOBAYASHI Misaki 1990.08.21 162 ㎝ 53 kg

SAKURAMOTO Naoko 1990.09.24 163 ㎝ 59 kg

KUMAGAI Saki 1990.10.17 171 ㎝ 59 kg
MF
TANAKA Asuna 1988.04.23 164 ㎝ 54 kg

ARIMACHI Saori 1988.07.12 160 ㎝ 55 kg

KOYAMA Kie 1988.10.13 168 ㎝ 55 kg

UTSUGI Rumi -key player1988.12.05 168 ㎝ 57 kg

KAWAMURA Mari - key player1988.12.19 160 ㎝ 55 kg

HARA Natsuko 1989.03.01 156 ㎝ 44 kg

ATAEYAMA Konomi 1989.03.22 154 ㎝ 54 kg

KADO Yuka 1990.06.19 162 ㎝ 54 kg
FW
NAKADE Hikari 1988.12.06 156 ㎝ 49 kg

SAKAI Yuki 1989.01.10 170 ㎝ 60 kg

NAGASATO Asano 1989.01.24 166 ㎝ 59 kg

GOTO Michi -key player1990.07.27 165 ㎝ 55 kg

A relative young squad, with just a handful of the players born in 1988. They’ve worked together for several years though, as the team has been pretty much the same since they played for the U-17 team.
Physically the team is very small, especially in offence, as several of the players are less than 160cm tall. From the videos i’ve seen of them though, they look very speedy and technical, and they will try to play their own game. That goes for pretty much every japanese NT team, as they try to make their lack of height count less by focusing on their strenghts instead, as technique and speed. Their coach, Sasaki, have had focus on improving the link-up play in past years, and making the change from defence to offence much faster and more efficient. Japan plays with 2 offensive wingers, that often cuts into the field and get theirselves into scoring positions. Defensively they have a pretty strong unit, that have played together for years now and therefore know eachother inside-out.

Recent matches:
Training match against Lyon,France: won 2-1
Training match against Nord Arie, France: won 4-0
Training match against Lyon,France: won 1-0
Training match against Jupish,France: won 2-0

This is pretty much the same team that ended on 2nd place in the Asian Cup U-19 last year, where they narrowly lost to North-Korea in the final. North-Korea and China have historically been the two biggest teams in Asia on the women’s side, and China actually won the U-20 World Cup 2 years ago. The same core of players also won the U-17 Asian Cup in 2005, so it seems this generation in Japan have reached their level atleast, and their managed said they are atleast aiming for a place in the quarterfinal in this tournament. Canada and Congo are not too strong it seems, and both of them crashed out already in the group stage 2 years ago, so they should be able to finish in 2nd behind Germany I think.

As for the two other asian contestants, China and North-Korea , both should be taken serious on this stage as they have a history of dong well in U-20 and U-17 tournaments on the women’s side ( North Korea are reigning champions). There haven’t been any scheduled matches in Asia for the bigger teams( only the preliminary qualifiers for the smaller ones) as far as I can see lately, so I don’t know how the 2 other asian teams have done. North-Korea cruised through the qualification though, winning all five matches with an aggregate of 13-3. As For China, they ended 3rd in the qualificiation tournament, and lost 1-4 to North Korea in the semifinal. China are missing perhaps their 2 most important offensive members, including their topscorer, so they aren’t at full strength in this tournament.