The Turkmenistan National Team’s 2016 tour of Japan

by our collaborator fron Japan, Steve Harris

Turkmenistan is neither Turkey nor Tajikistan. It’s a Central Asian country located on the Caspian Sea between Iran and Afghanistan (to the south) and Uzbekistan (to the north). It had been part of the Soviet Union but gained independence in 1991 after the collapse of the empire. Though still culturally tied to Russia, Turkmenistan has relatively little interaction with other countries.

The only former Soviet republic to never win a medal at the Olympics, Turkmenistan is hoping for a taste of some glory when it hosts the 2017 Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games next year. As we are all aware, futsal has been frozen out of the Olympics Games and even the Asian Games (the “Asian Olympics”), but the sport has had a spot at the Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games since the start of that competition in 2005. In fact, Turkmenistan almost took the bronze in the Men’s Futsal event of the 2009 Asian Indoor Games, losing to Uzbekistan 0-2 in the third-place match.

Turkmenistan is not completely new to futsal. In fact, in the 2016 AFC Futsal Championship qualification round for Central Asia, Turkmenistan drew with both Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, the two countries that emerged from that region to play in the final tournament. (A 3-5 loss to Afghanistan kept Turkmenistan from going through.)


A Partnership Starts between Turkmenistan and Japan

The Japan Football Association has been providing generous support to its Asian Football Confederation (AFC) neighbors in order to raise the level of football in the region. While other Asian countries have been actively accepting Japan’s offers for support, Turkmenistan had been content to remain closed off and independent – until Nov. 2011. After the JFA had sent out a reminder about its support program, Turkmenistan replied that it would appreciate coaching support – but for futsal rather than football.

The JFA passed on the request to Kyohei Nakamura, a one-time player who won the second edition of the All-Japan Futsal Champion in 1997 and later went on to establish Fuchu Athletic F.C., a team currently in Japan’s top-flight F.League. Prior to Turkmenistan’s request for assistance in 2011, Nakamura had been doing work for the JFA in its coaching program and even had won two titles as manager of the Japan futsal women’s national team at the Asian Indoor Games in 2007 and 2009.

Nakamura’s task was to manage the Turkmenistan national team in the 2012 AFC Futsal Championship, which was also the qualification round for the World Cup that year. He trained the team rigorously in Thailand in order to prepare for the completion, which was to be held in the UAE in late of May of 2012. The team made a strong start, even defeating Thailand 1-0 in a friendly. However, Turkmenistan’s performance at the qualification round was doomed by injury, illness and even the inability to have a doctor on the bench. By the end of the tournament, Turkmenistan had lost all three matches and failed to win a ticket to the next round of the tournament: the quarter-finals.




Nakamura’s Turkmenistan Adventure: Chapter 2

Fast-forward ahead to 2016. After winning the hosting rights to the 2017 Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games, Turkmenistan once again reached out to the JFA and Nakamura for assistance. Except this time the request was far more serious: the coaching assignment would be for over one year – until the 2017 Asian Indoor Games – and Nakamura would have to actually move to Turkmenistan to work with the team full-time. Few would believe that a successful business person and general manager of a top-flight futsal team would agree to the offer, but Nakamura did.

This time he had an assistant. Yoshinobu Maekawa, like Nakamura, had been on the front lines during the earliest chapter of Japan’s modern futsal era. He learned the game at Cascavel, one of Japan’s stronger futsal sides in the late ‘90s and early ‘00s – a team that would go on to become Pescadola Machida, currently in fourth place in the F.League. Maekawa would go on to coach at Cascavel, Shonan Bellmare in the early days of the F.League, and even the Myanmar national team. As he has worked extensively with Nakamura in the JFA’s coaching program, the two share a common understanding of the game.




The two Japanese coaches moved to Turkmenistan in July 2016 to begin training the national team. From the outset, at least two training camps in foreign countries had been considered: one in Japan and one is Spain. The former was to take place in Nakamura’s hometown of Fuchu and the latter in Santiago, Spain, where Maekawa studied futsal coaching under Santiago Futsal director Federico Pérez, the Spaniard who is better known as Fede from his playing days.


The Japan Tour
It took some convincing to get the FFT (Football Federation of Turkmenistan) to agree, but on Nov. 17, 2016, Nakamura, Maekawa and the entire Turkmenistan national team arrived at Narita International Airport in Japan. Training started the next day at Mizuno Futsal Plaza next door to Ajinomoto Stadium (Chofu, Japan), where football team FC Tokyo plays its home games. At 10:00 the night of Nov. 22, Turkmenistan played its first practice match against Kanto division 1 team (division 2 level) Ligare Tokyo, a come-from-behind 2-1 victory for the visiting Central Asian team. The following night at 9:00 Turkmenistan faced Fugador Sumida of the F.League (with several of the top team players present) and lost 1-5 despite delivering a respectable performance.



The Japan training camp has been a miracle achieved through intensive hard work and minimal resources. Nakamura and Maekawa have had to act as coaches, organizers, assistants, secretaries and even drivers. Others such as myself have helped out in transporting the players, but the 13-day camp has been organized with virtually no extra support.

So what does Turkmenistan futsal look like? The players are very fit and disciplined, with good skills on the ball and goalkeepers with lightning fast reflexes. Against the six Japanese teams they have played during the visit, they have defended well and demonstrated the ability to penetrate on the sides through skillful dribbling. Skills in the pivot position are still developing, so Turkmenistan have been unable to play a convincing 3-1 formation. There is also a lack of the kind of organized movement in which third and fourth players take advantage of open space in attack to take on the goalkeeper 1v1, so the 4-0 is also a formation that will take some time to master.


The Road Ahead
Nevertheless, as mentioned before, Turkmenistan is ranked 79th in the world and proved capable of drawing with neighbors Tajikistan (72nd) and Kyrgyzstan (41st) in the AFC Championship qualifiers, an indicator that the country has the potential to compete on the top stage in Asia. (Recall that Kyrgyzstan came within one game of qualifying for the 2016 World Cup in Colombia.)

Though Turkmenistan has relatively less interaction with other countries, the top-level competition of Russian Futsal Super League matches can be viewed there via Russian television broadcasts. And Nakamura and Maekawa are doubtless providing video materials to give the players a clear sense of the modern style of futsal needed for success on the world stage.

The Japan tour was a major success, as the team kept its spirits high and showed virtually no signs of fatigue. Facing Pescadola Machida, the current champion of the All-Japan Futsal Championship, in the last game of the Japan tour, Turkmenistan pivot Abudylla drew first blood. Turkmenistan continued to hold off the almost full-strength Japanese champion, only to allow late strikes by Japan internationals Yuki Murota and Shinsuke Hara. A 1-2 loss to a team of this kind of quality is the equivalent of a win for the up-and-coming Turkmenistan. And hopefully we will see that potential come to fruition at next year’s Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games, when Turkmenistan in the home side.




2017 Turkmenistan Tour of Japan
- Nov. 17: Arrived in Japan
- Nov. 22: 2-1 (0-1) win against Ligare Tokyo (Kanto League Div. 1)
- Nov. 23: 3-5 (1-2) loss against Fugador Sumida (F.League)
- Nov. 24: 3-2 (1-1) win against Fuchu Athletic F.C. (F.League)
- Nov. 26: 4-5 (3-2) loss against Fire Fox (Kanto League Div. 1)
- Nov. 29: 3-5 (0-3) loss against Bardral Urayasu (F.League)
- Nov. 30: 1-2 (1-0) loss against Pescadola Machida (F.League)

The Squad
No. - Name - Age - Job - Team
10 - Vatan - 25 - Student - Bagtyyarlyk
1 - Meretgeldi - 20 - Student - Talyp Sport
4 - Maksat - 22 - Futsal player - Denizchi
2 - Ysmayylmuhammet - 22 - Futsal player - Migration
9 - Abudylla - 26 - Migration agent - Migration
7 - Gurbangeldi - 21 - Student - Talyyp Sport
12 - Serdar - 27 - Student - Bagtyyarlyk
15 - Mekan - 26 - Security - Senagat Bank
8 - Geldimuhammet - 29 - Policeman - Dashgala
3 - Rahym - 24 - Policeman - Dashgala
14 - Rovshen - 23 - Student - Talyyp Sport (captain)
13 - Allamyrat - 22 - Futsal player - Denizchi
5 - Kadyr - 21 - Futsal player - Denizchi
11 - Mulkaman - 23 - Student - Talyp Sport
22 - Eziz - 27 - Student - Bagtyyarlyk
16 - Shohrat - 23 - Student - Bagtyyarlyk

Manager: Kyohei Nakamura
Coach: Yoshinobu Maekawa






Posted by Luca Ranocchiari --> luca.ranocchiari@futsalplanet.com