Women’s U-17 takes apart France 7-1

Hiroshi Yoshida’s Women’s U-17 are defying expectations in the Women’s U-17 tournament in New Zealand and produced the biggest margin of victory as they overwhelmed France 7-1. In-fact in a show of good sportsmanship, Japan eased back after the break or the score would have likely been much worse. After the match coach Hiroshi Yoshida commented: “I always tell my players that, no matter how beautiful the football is, the purpose of their play must always be to score,” he said. “The final outcome – goals – is everything. [Against France], because we played good football and scored a lot of goals, it was an ideal performance.”

Fifteen year-old Mana Iwabuchi (pictured left) created numerous opportunities with Yuiko Inoue opening the scoring at eleven minutes. French hopes grew as five minutes later Marine Augis brought the match level at 1 but after that Japan countered with six unanswered goals.

Natsuki Kishikawa (pictured, left) scored from the spot five minutes later and twelve minutes after the break, Chiaki Shimada at thirty-eight minutes and Chinatsu Kira scoring an incredible hat-trick at twenty-six, twenty-seven and thirty-four minutes. After the match skipper Natsuki Kishikawa said: “Although I am inclined to think we can win this tournament, I don’t want to think that way because it might affect our performance.”