SOCCER/87th All Japan High School Soccer Tournament: Kagoshima Josei, Hiroshima Minami set for final

SAITAMA--Kagoshima Josei High School and Hiroshima Minami High School will face each other in the 87th All Japan High School Soccer Tournament final, which kicks off this afternoon at Tokyo's National Stadium.

Both schools became finalists for the first time after close victories in the semifinals Saturday. As a prefectural representative, a Kagoshima school moved into the final for the first time in three years, while a Hiroshima school made it to the title match for the first time in 41 years.

At Saitama Stadium on Saturday, Kagoshima Josei netted five times to defeat Maebashi Ikuei High School of Gunma Prefecture 5-3. Kagoshima Josei set a tournament record with 27 goals, shattering Teikyo High School's 24-goal mark in 1981.

In the second game, Hiroshima Minami advanced to the final with striker Yuya Kaneshima's lone goal in a 1-0 win over Ibaraki Prefecture's Kashima Gakuen.

Kagoshima Josei's Yuya Osako will be looking to win the title and set a new mark for top scorer of the tournament.

The prolific striker scored nine goals in the tournament after netting twice in the first four games and scoring a well-deserved equalizer in the semifinal.

Osako is tied with Kunimi High School's Sota Hirayama (F.C. Tokyo) and Toyama Daiichi's Tomohisa Ishiguro (J2's Kataller Toyama), who each scored nine times in 2003 and 1999, respectively.

"I don't care if I set the record or not," a calm and cool Osako told reporters after the semifinal. "All I have to do is contribute to the team (for a victory).

"The final will be my last (high school) game. I want to enjoy the final with my teammates."

Osako will join the J.League champion Kashima Antlers after graduation.

In the first match at Saitama Stadium, both Kagoshima Josei and Maebashi Ikuei, both strong title contenders, assailed the nets with more than 20 shots in a hard-hitting game.

Kagoshima shocked Maebashi first with an early opener that forward Shogo Nomura, who was positioned at the far post, dived to head a corner kick one minute from kick off.

"We practiced this set piece play in training sessions," Nomura said afterwards. "But the early goal made us passive later in the game."

Maebashi answered back with three goals in a row within the first 15 minutes.

Two minutes from the opener, midfielder Keiya Nakami slotted an equalizer into the right corner of the goal to make it 1-1.

In the 10th minute, Nakami passed the ball to midfielder Satoki Yoneda, who stopped the ball with his chest and converted home with his right foot to make it 2-1.

Maebashi forward Yusuke Minagawa chased the long feed from defender Atsushi Shirota to kick a loop shot over Kagoshima goalkeeper Yu Kamizono to make it 3-1 in the 14th minute.

Maebashi dominated the game, but allowed a goal from a mistake in the 22nd minute when keeper Tomohisa Shimura and a defender fell asleep and easily allowed Kagoshima's Nomura to score off a pass from Keisuke Kono to make it 3-2.

"We had watched videos of Maebashi and realized their combination was not good," Nomura said. "With nothing to lose, I just chased the ball and stretched my leg."

The revived Kagoshima leveled the game with Osako's 43rd-minute goal, and went ahead to 4-3 in first-half injury time when Maebashi keeper Shimura mistakenly punched a corner kick into their own goalmouth.

Kagoshima added one more goal in the second half to make it 5-3.

"Maebashi outplayed us, but we were able to score by capitalizing on their mistakes," Kagoshima Josei head coach Satoru Kokubo said.

In the second game Saturday, Hiroshima Minami's Kaneshima scored a 57-minute goal to end a scoreless stalemate. It was Kaneshima's first goal of the tournament.

"I thanked our head coach for starting me although, until today, I was unable to score," Kaneshima said. "I hope I'll have an outstanding performance in the final."

Hiroshima Minami boasts a solid defense, conceding just one goal in five games.

"In soccer, offense and defense are always linked closely as if two sides of the same coin," Hiroshima head coach Kiyoshi Fujii said. "It won't be a one-sided game in the final (although Kagoshima has powerful attackers)."(IHT/Asahi: January 12,2009)