Japan defeats USA by 3-2 to clinch a gold medal at Champions Challenge I
The ESB Electric FIH Champions Challenge I tournament concluded at University College Dublin (UCD) in Ireland on June 26, where Japanese women clinched a stunning come from behind victory over the USA women by 3-2.
The coach of the Japan’s national hockey team was very pleased at the victory and viewed it as the preparation for the 2012 London Olympic Games which seemed in a right direction.
“It is the start of our preparations for pre-Olympic plan. We wanted to work on three points for this tournament, our organisation, our physical shape and third, our tactics," Zenjiro Yasuda, the head coach of Japan national hockey team, pleasingly stated
after the victory.
The Japanese women, being world’s number nine in FIH World Rankings, entered the tournament as a favourite, but they had to struggle in the group-stage matches, where they could not perform according to their abilities and hardly manage to qualify for the
final.
In the final, they once again were down by two goals, early in the first half, but then they succeeded in scoring their first goal in the ending moments of the match, while in the second half it was all for Japan as they scored two goals in the last thirty
minutes.
“When we were 2-0 behind, we knew the Americans were tired from the tournament so we did not panic, did not change anything and stuck with our principles," Zenjiro Yasuda further stated about their game strategy and the USA early lead.
The match started in favour of USA, who scored the first goal just after three minutes of the play, when Michelle Kasold guided the ball towards the Japanese goal-post. Leading by one goal to nil the USA women did not impede their attack; in fact they persistently
continued to add pressure on the Japanese. Five minutes before the interval, USA doubled their lead, but this time Katie O’Donnell delivered for USA. However, the USA women stunned by the Japanese, when they reduced the USA lead seconds before the interval,
thanks to Akane Shibata. The first half ended at 2-1 to USA.
The second half clearly belonged to Japan who took over the charge from the very start of the second half and made the equalising effort in 41st minute on a penalty-stroke, when Ai Murukami made no mistake in converting it into a goal. The championship
winning-goal was, once again, scored by Murukami just before the end of the play.
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