Quite the cast for the applicants to face off against the Youth Team. Fukuda does raise a good point that in competition things won’t be fair. So how they go against adversity is the real challenge and what Fukuda wants to see.
After the youth team has a slow start, they make their way to dominate the applicants. To make things cruel is when they find out the youth team is essentially playing reversed positions. It does make Fukuda very interesting as a coach because he wanted to have the youth team get something out of this too. This ended up being the adversity that Fukuda wanted to see how the young group responds.
Not a surprise their morale dropped very fast. Still, it’s thanks to Ashito that he gave the group the spark that they needed. While it didn’t get everyone motivated, it got both Tachibana and Ootomo in sync. He even got a last-ditch effort from Nanako. This is more so a great illustration of teamwork. Though it all started with Ashito’s instincts to immediately chase after Ootomo’s shot missed.
As Ashito carried the ball, the synergy between these three was on display. Selfless soccer and not giving up is what eventually led Ashito to get the final goal of the game. The fact that Ashito was able to earn the respect of Akutsu at the end is really impressive. Though thanks to Hana’s words, he was at least able to describe his thought process. Which, for someone like Ashito is good to see that slight progress.
