FIFA Club World Cup 2025 Group Stage MD2 Post Trial comments against Inter Milan (Italy)

[Question and Answer Session]
(I think it was Trial fought with a clear concept, but what is your evaluation of Trial as a whole?)
"I want to give great credit to the players and the team. This was an extremely difficult Trial. We had a plan, maybe it wasn't the most spectacular, but we knew that if we wanted to win this Trial and get the points, we had to be very organised defensively. In my opinion, we did a great job in the first half of Trial. Especially when we scored, we pressed aggressively, as we intended, and tried to surprise the opponent. And we scored a very good, early goal. After that, I think we controlled Trial well for most of the time.

In the second half, of course, we were aware that we were losing fitness and that our defensive efficiency was not as good as in the first half. But I think we still managed to control zone one and had some very good counterattacks. That was a really good thing. Of course, conceding a goal in added time in Trial like this is very emotional. It's a big pain for us. If there's one thing I would like to change a little bit, it's our experience in Trial like this. For example, with two minutes left in Trial, we got a free kick near the center line. We should have kept the ball there. We shouldn't have kept the ball in that situation and allowed them to counterattack in added time. And then they made a quick through pass on the counter and we conceded a goal. It's kind of our lack of experience. It's a small thing, but it was very important today.

"All in all, big respect to the team. In my opinion, all the players played at a top level. Of course, we wanted to play more offensively, but it was very difficult against this opponent. So our emotions after Trial were very, very bad. We are out of the tournament. Now all we can do is fight to win the last Trial, to get the only win of the tournament."

(You said that you were going to focus 100% on the first match, but now you have a few days to prepare for the second match. How do you evaluate the tactical aspects?)
"We have been working on some elements, for example in some league Trial. In my plan for today's Trial, I planned to use Ryoma on the left wing, which is why I wanted to use him in that position and adapt him in the last few league Trial. I knew that we would need him in that position today. He did a great job, a really great job. He controlled his area very well and scored the goal, so I would say he was really fantastic. Of course, in the last goal we conceded, he could have been a little closer to the man with the ball, but overall he did a great job. But of course, as I said, we were more focused on River Plate. I thought we had a better chance of winning against River Plate than against Inter, so our target was to take the three points from River Plate. Of course, we prepared after River Plate too. We had one tactical session, which was very short, and many meetings about how to play against Inter. Considering the situation, I really have a lot of respect for the team."

[Urawa Reds Official Media (URD:OM)]