The 2023 All Japan High School Soccer Tournament (第102回全国高等学校サッカー選手権大会; All Japan JFA 102nd High School Soccer Tournament) marked the 102nd edition of the referred annually contested cup for High Schools over Japan, contested by all 48 prefectural qualifications' winning schools.[1][2]
The defending champions were Okayama Gakugeikan, from Okayama Prefecture, who won the 2022 final with a 3–1 win over Kyoto Prefecture's Higashiyama in the Final, becoming the first high school from Okayama to ever win the competition. They won the title despite not playing at the top tier of Japan's youth league system, having finished the previous season as a mid-table team in the Chugoku Prince League, one of the nine regional leagues that composes the second tier.[3][4]
As the norm, from the first round to the quarterfinals, the matches had a duration of 80 minutes, split into two halves of 40 minutes each (not counting injury time). The semi-finals and the final had matches the traditional format of around 90 minutes, however, matching the standard match length of professional football. During the tournament, if a match should be tied, it directly required a penalty shoot-outs, except for the final, where extra-time would be played if the match was kept tied for 90 minutes.
The entire tournament, including the prefectural tournament finals, was streamed on SportsBull[5] and TVer free of charge.[6] The semi-finals and the final were aired on NTV.[7] Alongside it, NTV G+ in cable TV.,[8] NTV and Nippon News Network (NNN)local stations has also shown selected games from the first round to the quarter-finals.
Calendar
The tournament took place in a 12-day span, with the tournament split into a total of 6 stages. The draw to decide the tournament schedule and the match pairings was done in 20 November.
The venues for the tournament were split into four different prefectures. In total, nine different stadiums hosted matches for the tournament. Two stadiums are located for each of the Kanagawa, Chiba, and Saitama prefectures, while three stadiums are located in Tokyo.[9]
All the 47 prefectures holds knockout stage qualifiers for their respective High Schools. Tokyo's qualifiers is the only to qualify two teams to the competition, as they have the largest amount of registered High Schools affiliated with the All-Japan High School Soccer Federation. Teams playing at national/regional-level leagues earns a bye from the early stages, getting automatically allocated into the third or fourth round of their respective qualifiers, specially to accommodate their busier schedule.
Notable absentees from the tournament were Premier League high schools Asahikawa Jitsugyo, Riseisha, Higashi Fukuoka and RKU Kashiwa, respectively Hokkaido qualifiers' runner-up, Osaka qualifiers' runner-up, Fukuoka qualifiers' runner-up and Chiba qualifiers' semi-finalist. Prince League's Higashiyama, who last year was the national tournament's runner-up ended also as a runner-up on this year's Kyoto qualifiers, and one of Tokyo's qualifiers semi-finalists Teikyo, who since 2009 was unable to qualify for the national tournament, despite being the only school from Tokyo to reach the 1st division of the Kanto Prince League since 2015, playing on it since 2019.
Meanwhile, 8 of the 11 high schools that on 2023 played on the Premier League were able to qualify to the national competition. Defending champions Okayama Gakugeikan qualified for the third consecutive time, and for the sixth-ever time in their history. Waseda Jitsugyo and Nago, competition debutants, were both the lowest-ranked teams in the tournament, as they played the 2023 season in their respective prefecture's 2nd divisions, which are part of the 5th tier of U-18 football in Japan.[10]
The schedule was announced on 20 November 2023, after the draw was conducted by the JFA, following the completion of the competition's prefectural qualifications.[11][12]
Note: Seiryo wasn't able to gather local fans due to the 2024 Sea of Japan earthquake. The earthquake had a big effect on residents of Ishikawa, where Seiryo High School is located, meaning that it was unviable for local fans to travel away to Chiba to watch this match. However, students from other participating schools, including Nagoya and their second round opponents Ichiritsu Funabashi, stepped in to help Seiryo to be cheered and supported during the match.[13]
^"第102回全国高校サッカー選手権大会 大会概要" [102nd National High School Soccer Championship Tournament Overview]. jfa.jp (in Japanese). Japan Football Association. 23 October 2023. Retrieved 23 October 2023.
^"浅野拓磨「第102回全国高校サッカー選手権大会」応援リーダーに決定！高校生に向けてのメッセージも【コメント全文】" [Takuma Asano has been selected as the ambassador for the 102nd National High School Soccer Championship! Message for high school students [Read below]]. ntv.co.jp (in Japanese). NTV. 14 August 2023. Retrieved 21 September 2023.
^"高円宮杯 JFA U-18 サッカープリンスリーグ 2021" [Prince Takamado JFA U-18 Football Prince League 2021]. jfa.jp (in Japanese). JFA. 9 January 2023. Retrieved 23 October 2023.
^"第102回全国高校サッカー選手権大会【全試合無料ライブ配信】" [The 102nd All Japan High School Soccer Tournament [Free live streaming of all matches]]. SportsBull (in Japanese). Retrieved 25 December 2023.
^TVer - 無料で動画見放題 [TVer - Unlimited free on-demand streaming] (in Japanese), retrieved 25 December 2023
^"日本テレビ『第102回全国高校サッカー選手権大会』放送日程" [Nippon TV – "The 102nd All Japan High School Soccer Tournament" Schedule]. Nippon TV (in Japanese). Retrieved 27 December 2023.
^"会場" [Venues]. jfa.jp (in Japanese). JFA. Retrieved 23 October 2023.
^"TEAMS". ntv.co.jp (in Japanese). NTV. Retrieved 4 November 2023.
^"組み合わせ決定 第102回全国高等学校サッカー選手権大会" [Pairings decided – 102nd All Japan High School Soccer Tournament]. jfa.jp. JFA. 20 November 2023. Retrieved 20 November 2023.
^"第１０２回全国高校サッカー選手権大会組み合わせ表" [Schedule – 102nd All Japan High School Soccer Tournament] (PDF). jfa.jp. JFA. 20 November 2023. Retrieved 20 November 2023.
