U17 national football coach Kenichi Uemura's annual summary: insist on high-intensity training and improve through trial and error

Reporter Chen Yong reports On January 9, in Suzhou, the summary meeting of the Youth Training Center of the Chinese Football Association was held, and at this meeting focusing on the technical and tactical development of young people, Kenichi Uemura, the coach of the Chinese U17 national team (08 age group national youth), delivered a speech entitled "2024 U17 National Youth Annual Summary and Prospects". While summarizing the performance of the 08-year-old national youth team last year, Kenichi Uemura also pointed out the direction that the national youth team needs to improve in combination with the data: insist on high-intensity training, continue to warm up with the strong team, and achieve progress in persistence.

In October 2024, the 08-year-old Guoshao defeated Bahrain Guoshao 2-0, defeated Bhutan Guoshao 6-0, and drew 2-2 with South Korea Guoshao in the U17 Asian Cup (Asian Junior Championship) qualifiers held in Dalian.

In the past year, the 08-year-old national youth group had a training camp in Germany in February, a training camp in Romania in April, a training camp in Japan in June, and a total of 15 warm-up matches in August. In the first three training camps, the team's results were 2 wins, 1 draw and 9 losses. In the Shenyang Peace Cup in August, the effect of the warm-up of the national junior team and the strong team finally appeared, and the team defeated Vietnam Guoshao 4-0, Uzbekistan Guoshao 2-1, and Japan Guoshao 1-2. In the end, at the Asian Junior Championship Qualifiers in October, the 08-year-old national youth advanced to the main competition.

"Throughout 2024, we went through a process of trial and error and iteration to finally take shape." Kenichi Uemura said. In his speech, Kenichi Uemura talked about the concept of the national junior game: the integration of offense and defense. At the same time, he said that there are four main criteria for evaluating players: having a strong motivation; Respect for teammates and the ability to make self-sacrifices for the team and teammates; Players who manage themselves, value their time and work hard, and who are grateful and work hard through action.

During his time at the helm of Kunichi, Kenichi Uemura maintained a good habit: one-hour meetings every night. At the meeting, the players will have group discussions, and through this heuristic meeting, Uemura hopes that the players will develop the habit of self-reflection after training and games.

Almost all Japanese coaches insist on using the stats, and so does Kenichi Uemura, who compared the data of the Japanese training with the match against South Korea.

In terms of chance creation (shots divided by attacks), the Kokushoi was only 8% per game during the training session in Japan and 11.4% against the Kokushoi Koreans. At the same time, there has been a significant increase in the number of shots on goal and the number of shots on target. Defensively, the opponent's chance creation rate was as high as 19.3% during Japan's training, and in the match with South Korea's national youth, the 08-year-old national youth suppressed the opportunity creation rate of the Korean national youth at 5.9%, and finally the 08-year-old national youth controlled the South Korean national youth's shot data at 6 times and the shot on target data at 3 times. The national youth is 12 times and 6 times in terms of these two statistics, and comprehensively suppresses the Korean national youth. In addition, the possession rate of the 08 national youth also reached 60%.

Kenichi Uemura also analyzed the high-intensity running ability of the national youth, and the data used the U17 World Cup Japan 1-2 Spain and the U17 Asian Cup qualifiers China and South Korea, the Japanese team had a high-intensity running distance of 9879.4 meters, accounting for 8.6% of the total running distance, and Spain 7956 meters, accounting for 7.1%. In the other race, the Chinese team was 7,586 meters, accounting for 7.2%. Reference data shows that 8% to 10% of high-intensity running distance is more reasonable. Kenichi Uemura said that although the data came from different sources, the 08-year-old national youth wanted to further improve, and they needed to insist on training in a high-intensity environment, while continuing to accumulate experience through matches against strong teams.

Kenichi Uemura also shared the analysis of the video footage of the match between the 08-year-old national youth and the Korean national junior team, he demonstrated the high-pressure pressing and quick return defense of the national junior team, and the two goals of the national junior team were two offensive opportunities obtained after the high-pressure pressing in the front court to lead to a goal or create a penalty.

Kenichi Uemura said that the national junior team will continue to work hard to improve individual tactical understanding and technical ability, improve physical fitness ability, and improve the tactical literacy and diversity of the team. To this end, during the period when the national junior team is not training, the coaching staff will also combine training and game analysis, assign corresponding self-training tasks to the players, and establish a daily reporting mechanism.

The draw for the 2025 U17 Asian Cup will take place on January 23, as the AFC adjusts the bracket basis, and the 08-year-old national youth will be changed from the third to the fourth pot in this draw. The 08-year-old national junior will quickly start analyzing the opponent after the draw results are announced.

"It's all about qualifying for the Under-17 World Junior Championship." Kenichi Uemura said.