Quite impressive that Akiyama was the one who stopped the goal with one hand. But even then no doubt the team is falling apart at the moment. What’s more impressive is that Akiyama gets the first years to relax. Defense in soccer is very complex. While the first year’s horizontal spacing was excellent their vertical spacing wasn’t. Of course their naivety showed because they tried to figure out vertical senpai out of their senpai. Essentially they needed to provide instructions to them. It once again shows how important communication is in soccer.
Fukuda mentions compact soccer for defense. Essentially the goal is to win the ball back, but in certain spots. Essentially you want them to fall into a trap is the easiest way to think about it. Instead of just pure reacting on defense you have scheming going on with what you want to execute.
It’s interesting how this flips the script on how Ashito looks at defense. We have seen him earlier in the series understand tactics with his teammates in how he can communicate with them with the goal of scoring. While here much the idea is much the same, but the goal here is to get the ball back, but there is a goal where you want to get it. For Ashito he can take the mindset he had with scoring, but now on defense. No surprise he is getting more passionate about defense.
Both Kuribayashi and Fukuda have an interesting choice of words with Kiriki. We know he gave up on passing to his teammates here if they couldn’t keep up. Which led to turnovers. Kuribayashi does mention he makes the team and him win. He can make the exceptional passes and do some with the teammates he has.
This is different from the suggestions of lowering his play to match his teammates skill. Fukuda’s reason has merit because he seeks the longterm and wants his players to reach their potential and never settle. Of course it doesn’t help the team win here and now, but the here and now has never been Fukuda’s views on coaching.
The sub for Ootomo was a genius. The goal was to pass to Ootomo to connect with Kiriki. One thing with Ootomo’s play since the start of the series has been his understanding of what his teammates want and communication. It keeps the pressure off Kiriki as the field where Kiriki was getting the ball before he can be further up as Ootomo gets the ball to him. The dull passes also allow the defense to stabilize more, which was a flaw.
In this why the teammates carry some of the load on him and make him realize how important they are? Before he was trying to do everything on his own and subconouciusoiy gave up on his teammates. But seeing how much they are going for him invokes his mindset of what he was doing before. The backspin showed him taking the approach Kuribayashi would and can make a winning play.
Ashito’s goal at the end of the volume shows his growth. As things are clicking on defense now for he can carry that on the offense. It is quite scary to wonder how far is Ashito’s potential
