Mie Prefecture's Yokkaichi Chuo Technical High School soundly defeated Shoshi High School from Fukushima Prefecture, 6-1, in the semifinals of the All Japan High School Soccer Tournament on Jan. 7.
Mie Prefecture's Yokkaichi Chuo Technical High School soundly defeated Shoshi High School from Fukushima Prefecture, 6-1, in the semifinals of the All Japan High School Soccer Tournament on Jan. 7.
The game marked the end of an inspiring run for the Fukushima team after a year of tragedy in a prefecture hit by the Great East Japan Earthquake and the accident at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
"We came here to give courage to Fukushima residents, so I'm content," Shoshi team captain Minami Sanpei said after the loss.
The school had never made it past the top 16 in national competition in previous years, and became the first Fukushima high school ever to make it to the semifinals.
Of the 80 soccer club members, roughly 50 are originally from outside the prefecture, and, after the nuclear accident, many members left the area because of radiation concerns. Practice was suspended for two weeks.
As the Fukushima nuclear crisis developed, the team had a two-hour limit on daily practices and had to play indoors when it rained.
Sanpei, a third-year student praised by teammates as likeable off the field and a natural leader on it, wrote the Chinese character for "kizuna" (bond) and the names of all 25 third-year teammates on his captain's armband before the competition.
"I am proud that I was able to play soccer with these members for all three years of high school," he said after the loss to Yokkaichi Chuo.
On the day of the quake, Sanpei's mother, Takako, 45, came to the school in Koriyama, Fukushima Prefecture, to pick up her son, but he refused to go home.
"Everyone else is staying. I can't leave them," he told her and returned to his dorm room. Sanpei only went home four days later, after making sure teammates were taken home in a minibus driven by the team manager.
Unable to practice with his teammates, Sanpei continued his gym work at home. He said he worried about whether they would ever get back together again, but reassured himself with the memory of their shared passion for the game.
Two weeks later, the team resumed practice at the team manager's old school in Chiba Prefecture. Although some first-year students who had been considering joining the team decided to not enroll in April, none of the team's second- or third-year students left.
On Jan. 9, Funabashi Municipal High School defeated Yokkaichi Chuo 2-1 in the final to win the high school championship at Tokyo's National Stadium.