You can find everything about the World Cup in football: Competition news, topics, Futistietäjä, program, results and statistics on ‘s World Cup website.
Four years ago Hinata Miyazawa was one of the most disappointing women in Japan.
The forward was one of the last players to be dropped from the squad that traveled to France for the World Cup. She was 19 at the time, but had already played in the national team for a year, and believed she was ready for her first women’s tournament.
However, it wasn’t Miyazawa’s time yet – and it wasn’t two years later either. Miyazawa participated in training matches, but did not make it to the Japanese team for the Olympics played in Tokyo, right at home.
– I was frustrated. However, I wasn’t going to give up, even though I was disappointed. On the contrary, I was going to use my frustration as an asset. Watching the Olympics on TV gave me more determination to be part of the next competition team, Miyazawa recounted later For Sendai-Sports.
– I really want to join the team (for the World Cup). I want to be chosen every time, not just once in a while. I want to be that kind of player.
This summer has been Miyazawa’s breakthrough. In a couple of weeks, he rose from a player unknown to the European public to one of the hottest goalscorers in football.
In addition to a place in the competition, the familiar coach’s team lost an important role, which Miyazawa has taken full advantage of. No Japanese player has scored six goals in one World Cup. Miyazawa is now at five, as many as Homare Sawa in the year 2011.
– When the team was announced, I called my mother and we both cried. I saw Japan win the World Cup in 2011 when I was in fifth grade. That’s when the dream of playing in the national team became brighter, he said in an interview just before the start of the WC tournament.
During the tournament, Miyazawa’s name was not even a glimpse in the Japan previews.
Number one star? Jun Endo. A goal stick? Mina Tanaka. Young hopeful? Aoba Fujino. Miyazawa did not even appear in the evaluations of Japan’s most likely starting line-up. In Japan’s last 17 games before the World Cup, Miyazawa had played the full 90 minutes just twice. In the last seven, he was in the starting line-up three times.
Before this tournament, he had scored four goals in the A national team, two of them in practice matches. The first was born last year. In the World Championships, he doubled his balance in a little over a week by destroying every opponent’s net in the group stage.
– I was overjoyed when I scored a goal. I don’t get nervous very often, but now we’re at the World Cup, and the feeling is completely different, Miyazawa said after the victory in Zambia with the help of a translator.
“I wouldn’t have believed it”
Miyazawa is originally from Minami-Ashigara, a small town southwest of Tokyo. In his family, he is the younger football player, because he has an older brother Who is three years older and introduced his little sister to the sport. The siblings grew up with their mother in a single-parent home after their father left the family when Hinata was less than 10 years old.
The mother, who worked two jobs, took advantage of soccer as a babysitter and received a similar reward in 2021 when Miyazawa joined Japan’s women’s professional league for its first season. More joy has come this summer. When Miyazawa became the second Japanese player to score five goals in the World Cup, mother and brother watched the match in their hometown.
– My mother and I went to the Minami-Ashigara grandstand yesterday to cheer. Many people have taken care of me and Hinta. And that Fifth goal… It looked like he surprised himself. Hope we see a lot more smiles in the quarterfinals, big brother wrote on Twitter After the Norway match, after previously saying that he and his sister would go through the World Cup matches by phone in the evenings.
Miyazawa has played two seasons in Japan’s WE League, having previously enjoyed success with Tokyo’s Verdy Beleza. The current club Mynavi Sendai has been in the upper middle class of the main league, but scored only 45 goals in two seasons, so it has been difficult to keep up with the results.
– He is an experienced international player. He played every game in the Under-17 World Cup and was successful there, as well as in the Under-20s. However, I would not have thought that he would be at the top of the scoring market, the head coach of Helmarei, who visited ‘s studio broadcast Marko Saloranta said.
“Freezing finish”
Miyazawa is technically highly skilled and inventive. He controls the ball very well in a small space and is able to play himself out of tight spaces.
He has been a valuable player for Japan with changes of rhythm that make the opponent’s lines crack before the last ball into the goal. He himself has repeatedly made his specialty the ability to carry and challenge the ball at his feet.
In these games, however, the savant has emerged as a goal stick. In Japan’s entertaining play, Miyazawa’s speed has come into the spotlight in particular, a feature that has puzzled even his teammates, with which the defensive line makes him disappear from their back.
This happened against Zambia, for example. Japan took the lead when a cross went into the penalty area with Miyazawa on the arc. There were three Zambian players around, but Miyazawa kept speeding away from more of them and continued with the first touch of the ball into the net.
In the same match, Miyazawa scored Japan’s third goal. It was the easiest of the tournament for him, but what was striking again was Miyazawa’s ability to read the game and anticipate the right moment to accelerate.
The success of the 2011 world champion and 2015 silver medalist is no shock, but Japan’s style of play has been poison for opponents. Spain went down with 23 percent possession through counter-attacks, as after quick turns, even faster players were ready to spin in the direction of the opponent’s goal.
The first goal started with a vertical pass that seemed to go to the center forward Riko Ueki to the running line. Miyazawa got the ball instead of him, who was only fourth in the best starting positions when the pass went. Vigorous acceleration, takeover and aiming followed en route to a cold finish.
– The goal was a manifestation of Japan’s playing. Miyazawa was riding in the distance and when he noticed Endo’s turn, he knew that now he had to go full speed. There were several of these in the Spain match, and Spain was buzzing with Miyazawa’s speed, Urheilu’s expert Jonne Kunnas times.
The 3-0 goal was a real show of skill. In that, Ueki saw that Miyazawa was starting at top speed, so the only task was to give a suitable pass for the run. It happened, and Miyazawa, who had already lost his keeper in the center circle, shot the ball magnificently into the back upper corner.
– Spain’s Irene Paredes ran at full speed as soon as the pass left his foot. Even then, he had a lead of more than five meters, but Miyazawa still passed. He started to accelerate immediately after the robbery when he smelled a counterattack, says Kunnas.
– He is able to move at the right moments in high speed areas and beat opposing players, but he especially knows how to time his movements when he perceives space. In addition, he is capable of a high-quality finish from full speed, which is not an easy feat after a 50-meter sprint.
In the Norway match, Miyazawa single-handedly topped the scoring list with a 3–1 goal. Ueki’s run absorbed three defenders, so there was only one Norwegian left for Miyazawa to beat. Known for his running power Neither does Thea Bjelde didn’t keep up.
– Icy finish. If you can stay so calm in that situation, when the defender comes in a thousand and one hundred, and you put it nicely into the bottom corner, you have to take your hat off, Urheilu’s expert Essi Sainio admired.
– I could never have imagined anything like this. All goals are the result of correct passes by other players. So the goals belong to everyone, not just me, Miyazwa himself said after the victory over Spain.
The joint journey started with the girls’ national team
Miyazawa has previous experience of World Cup heroics from the 2018 U20 World Championships, where Japan claimed gold. He scored only one goal, but at a turning point: in the final against Spain en route to the World Cup.
The team was coached Futoshi Ikeda, the current women’s head coach. Seven players from the same champion group have continued the story this summer on the women’s WC green.
– People always just say that I’m fast. However, sometimes I couldn’t play that fast. I want to become a player with many options to make opponents think. I want to be a player who always makes good choices, he said last year.
– My goal is to be involved in more scoring chances than anyone else. I want to score one goal in every match. I want people to smile and get excited when I get the ball. I want them to wonder what that one is doing this time, Miyazawa is described his playing style.
However, Arki has been far from the number of goals that have been witnessed in the World Cup tournament. Over the past two seasons, Miyazawa has played in the Japanese premier league in a total of 39 matches and scored four goals. Passes have been accumulated moderately, but the 23-year-old has not been a goal gun even on national courts.
Success this summer is more the sum of its parts than Miyazawa’s own flying weather. The Japanese team has known each other for years and Ikeda has managed to combine the individual strengths.
Japan already experimented with different formations and formations during the tournament, and now the pieces have fallen into place.
– The way of playing now fits perfectly. Of course, he is a young player and has developed a lot, and the development capacity is still huge. However, Japan has shaped its own shape and adapted during the Games as well as between games. It has a clear plan that players can implement.
You can find everything about the World Cup in football: Competition news, topics, Futistietäjä, program, results and statistics on ‘s World Cup website.