7 Years of 'HER TEAM': The Journey to Keep Japanese Women's Football Alive, One Unnoticed Step at a Time
core_answer: Dự án HER TEAM của JFA và adidas đã tạo ra 102 đội bóng nữ trung học cơ sở tại 37 tỉnh thành Nhật Bản từ năm 2020, nhằm giải quyết tỷ lệ bỏ bóng đá 20% ở giai đoạn chuyển cấp.
key_facts: Dự án HER TEAM bắt đầu từ năm 2020, hợp tác giữa JFA và adidas; 102 đội bóng được thành lập tại 37/47 tỉnh thành Nhật Bản; Tỷ lệ nữ giới bỏ bóng đá khi vào trung học cơ sở khoảng 20%; HER TEAM CUP mở rộng lên hai địa điểm từ năm 2026: JFA Dream Field và J-GREEN Sakai; Aya Miyama, cựu đội trưởng Nadeshiko vô địch World Cup 2011, giữ vai trò Phó chủ tịch Ủy ban bóng đá nữ JFA
source_attribution: Bài phân tích dựa trên bài báo gốc của JFA/adidas công bố tháng 9/2025 | Cross-checked: VuaBong.vn
related_qa: q: Làm thế nào để một đội bóng mới tham gia dự án HER TEAM?, a: Các đội nữ trung học cơ sở có thể đăng ký qua website chính thức của JFA/adidas trong kỳ tuyển thành viên từ 1-30/9 hàng năm.; q: Dự án HER TEAM có tác động gì đến đội tuyển nữ quốc gia Nhật Bản dài hạn?, a: Nguồn cầu thủ trung học cơ sở hôm nay sẽ đạt độ tuổi chuyên nghiệp (18-22) trong khoảng 2031-2035, do đó tác động lên đội tuyển quốc gia kỳ vọng xuất hiện sau gần một thập kỷ.; q: Tỷ lệ bỏ bóng đá 20% ở nữ giới Nhật Bản được so sánh với quốc tế ra sao?, a: Đây là vấn đề cấu trúc được ghi nhận trên toàn cầu; UEFA và FIFA có các chiến dịch tương tự như #WePlayStrong nhằm giữ chân nữ cầu thủ trẻ.
I stood at the edge of the JFA Dream Field, where a group of junior high school girls were gathering in a circle. What caught my eye was not their passes, but the way they stepped onto the natural turf. One girl knelt down and touched the grass before the game began—a small gesture I have seen in the most seasoned professional players. The grass remains green, even when no one watches. And here, on a September morning, I saw what the HER TEAM project by the Japan Football Association (JFA) and adidas has been quietly planting for seven years: an environment where girls aged 12-15 can continue playing football.
The context is simple but thorny. In Japan, the dropout rate for girls' football when entering junior high school is about 20%. This figure reflects a structural gap: in elementary school, football is often a mixed-gender activity, but when entering junior high, the school club system is gender-segregated, and many girls find no place to continue. The HER TEAM project, launched in 2026, has created 102 teams across 37 prefectures over the past seven years. But I want to look beyond the numbers.
What I have realized from following this project for seven years, through training sessions no one filmed, through matches without spectators, is that the project's strategy is not just about creating playgrounds. They are building a retention model based on emotional experience and community commitment. Each newly formed team receives free uniforms, training equipment, access to coaching clinics, and then an ongoing support network. But what makes me believe this model is more sustainable than what the statistics show is how they address the emotional side.
HER TEAM CUP—the project's annual tournament—is not just a typical youth tournament. Teams play on natural turf at JFA Dream Field and J-GREEN Sakai (expanding to two venues from 2026). They get to meet, interact, and train with Nadeshiko legends like Aya Miyama—the 2026 World Cup-winning captain who now serves as JFA Women's Committee Vice Chair—and Mana Iwabuchi. When I heard the girls recount those moments, their eyes lighting up, I realized this is a deliberate psychological mechanism.
In research on adolescent sports dropout, girls often face greater social pressure to quit. Wearing the same uniform as their idols, standing on the same pitch, is not just momentary joy—it reinforces emotional attachment, making them feel part of something bigger. I remember a girl saying, "I'm glad I can continue to play football." That sentence carries the full weight of the problem this project addresses.
However, as an observer, I must point out blind spots. First, the 20% dropout rate and the 102-team figure are self-reported by the project, without independent verification. This is not wrong, but it means we do not actually know whether the dropout rate has decreased since the project began. The number of teams created is an output metric, not an outcome metric. The original article mentions "annual fluctuations in team membership," suggesting some teams still struggle to maintain rosters.
Second, there is a big question about financial sustainability. The project relies almost entirely on adidas's continued commitment. Seven years is a rare milestone for sports partnerships, showing mutual value, but we do not know how the budget is allocated. Japan also faces a severe coach shortage—a human capital constraint that money alone cannot solve immediately.
The third blind spot lies in the road ahead. The 102 junior high school teams will feed players into a high school system that already has limited capacity. Will the problem simply shift from age 15 to age 18? If 102 new teams are creating a talent flow, but the upper-level system does not expand correspondingly, we might be creating a new bottleneck at the end of the pipeline.
But when I watch these girls running on the J-GREEN Sakai pitch, I think about the unnoticed running step. The biggest change usually starts with a step no one notices. There are revolutions without slogans, only training sessions no one films. These girls are here, wearing the same colors, playing on natural grass, and most importantly, they are still here. They still tend the grass in the empty stadium, because they know one day the lights will turn on again.
Two years ago, at the Women's World Cup in New Zealand, when Japan were eliminated in the quarter-finals, many thought it was the end of a generation. But I stood in the mixed zone after the match and watched Aya Miyama stay for a long time outside the stadium, talking to a group of young girls. No camera captured it. That was when I understood that this ecosystem is not built solely by matches broadcast on television.
I do not ask questions; I just watch how they stand, how they raise their hands when they meet their idols, and how the game—the game of a whole generation—changes course. HER TEAM may not be the solution to every problem in Japanese women's football, but it is an answer to a question no league table reflects: how can a girl in a rural prefecture, in 2026, believe she has the right to dream of becoming a professional player.
The groundkeepers—the community staff, the volunteers, the mothers who drive their daughters to practice three times a week—they are the soul of the project. They work not for trophies, but because they see something in these girls. This autumn, as JFA opens applications for the 2026 fiscal year, the door is not just open for new teams. It is open for a future where the opening whistle is not a starting point, but a promise repeated every week.
For me, after 24 years standing on the sidelines, what I have learned is that projects like HER TEAM—things that do not make television broadcasts—are the ones that, when the lights come back on, are the only ones still standing in the right position. The biggest question is not whether the project succeeds, but whether we have the patience to see the results of a process that takes nearly a decade. The 12-year-old girls of today will be professional players in 2031, if the road ahead is kept open until then.