Nagano ALT Soccer Tournament

The final soccer tournament of teh JET year was held in Sugadaira, Nagano; The same place I played my first tournament last year.

Again, it was a two day affair with matches on Saturday to decide the seedings for Sunday's knockout tournaments. And the weather for both days was gorgeous though we had to be careful not to get burned

Niigata was in a group with Gunma, Hachioji Wanderers, Gifu and Shizuoka. We drew against Gunma but won on penalties. The scored early in the game against Hachioji and cruised to a 4-0 victory. For the third match, I think we kind of took it for granted that we would win, relaxed too much and became lazy. No surprise that we lost that game. After our kick-up-the-arse we came back strongly against Shizuoka and won our final match. So, with eight points, we came fourth overall and progressed to the Trophy knockout tournament.

After onsen and dinner at the hotel we went to the traditional tournament party. It was a lot quieter than the party in October. I think the sun and heat had made a lot of people tired. Many stayed in their hotel rooms while those who went to the party (Niigata included) were still knackered from running around all day in teh sun. We got more genki as we drunk more beer; I think Joe and Ben had a breakdancing showdown at one point.

So, Sunday. First match was at 9am so Joe had us down at the pitch all suited and booted by 8.30am. We had been seeded against Nagano. Both teams played strongly but Toshi managed to score first for us. We kept trying to attack to extend our lead. Nagano kept pressing for teh equaliser, which they scored ten minutes in teh second half. Niigata kept pressing for teh second goal and two minutes from time, we scored it. A Nagano move was broken down on the right-hand side and teh ball played into our strikers. Nagano cleared for a throwing near the corner flag and Niigata attacked again. The ball was crossed in and Ben flung himself at teh ball infront of the goal. He managed to get something on the ball (head, shoulder, nipple?) and scored the winning goal! Niigata held on til the final whistle blew. Two wins away from a treble!

We had a long wait for the semi-final game, which was against Chiba. I think the wait might have affected our concentration. We started off strongly and so did Chiba and pretty soon they were having the best of it. We seemed to be chasing them at some points and Chiba had a number of shots that came close. At other times we dominated but couldn't turn our advantage into scoring oppertunities. Then Chiba scored and we chased the game but couldn't equalise. The final wistle blew and we were out of the tournament. We didn't play badly, but it just wasn't our day.

We were gutted. But we had the third/fourth place play-off to play; a chance to pick ourselves up and have a bit of fun.

We had to make a few changes, the biggest being that Pete had injured his leg and couln't play in goal. Instead, Joe picked up the gloves, put on his best Scottish accent and became the big man between the sticks. We also had Luke Derror up front with Ben while Tom played centre-back.

The play-off was against Miyagi who we'd played against in Tochigi. They're a good team, and they played the game with in the same spirit we where. It was great to be playing in a proper game with sucha relaxed atmosphere. I gave up worrying about defence and pushed forward a few times. Later I was subbed and Pete was brought on as a striker. I've never seen the guy moved so fast! A few minutes later, I came on as striker too. I tried to play the Wayne Rooney / in-the-hole role I played for Kawaji but I only had five minutes up front and most of that time we were defending. But it was fun being up there again for the first time in seven months. I managed to make some contribution. Pete and I ran in opposite directions, pulling teh defence apart as we played the ball through midfield. It came to Kazuki who had plenty of space to tee up a shot from range that sailed into the top corner. 1-0, whistle blows, Niigata wins!

So we came third and won a small trophy. We've decide that whoever wins MVP for teh tournament will get to keep the trophy. (So for those who havent voted, that's Martin aka 'Cloudy', spelt C-L-O-U-D-Y.)

So that's it for Niigata ALT FC this season. With Joe leaving Niigata this summer along with some JETs returning home we'll be having a new captain and a new team when next year's tournaments start in October.

I hope it'll be as fantastic as this year.