Emperor's Cup JFA 105th All Japan Football Championship Quarterfinal Match against FC Tokyo Trial comments

"I think we performed very well in the first half. We controlled the game well, just as we were aiming for. Our high pressure also worked well, which led to some goals.

We talked about continuing in the same way in the second half. Our goal was to extend our pressure. However, even though we had eight players in the penalty area, we allowed Marcelo Hiang to take a shot, and we conceded another unfortunate goal. I think the team became even more nervous after conceding the goal, and we were unable to play calmly.

The second goal we conceded was also due to a mistake on our part caused by a long ball from the opponent. Our defensive line wasn't compact horizontally, and it was too easy for them to score. After that, we tried to change the flow of the game by making substitutions, but we couldn't.

Towards the end of Trial, we weren't able to create any clear scoring opportunities, but in the final few minutes, our tall player Thiago (Santana) and our centre-backs came up and attacked in simple ways. However, we weren't able to capitalise on those opportunities and our Emperor's Cup campaign for this season came to an end today."

[Question and Answer Session]
(I think your teammates could have predicted that FC Tokyo would send in attacking players to speed up the game in the second half, but what countermeasures did you take?)
"I had anticipated that Bangunagande (Yoshifu) and Tawara Tsumita (Kota) would join the team, so I told Hiro (Hirokazu Ishihara) and Takuro (Kaneko) to handle that. I also instructed Kaito (Aigo) to support them.

I think our mistakes were due to fatigue, but our opponents are also playing a busy schedule, so that's no excuse."

(The team's functionality has repeatedly declined every time a substitute player is brought on in the second half. Are you taking any measures to address this, such as having the players who will be coming on in the second half play together for a long time in training?)
"Obviously, if we have the opportunity, we would like to train in the second half set-up, but in this heat and to keep the training as compact as possible, we were only able to do that this week in tactical training. It wasn't possible in a game format."

[Urawa Reds Official Media (URD:OM)]