In the Saitama Prefecture Inter-High qualifying matches, the Walabis have managed to win all their games despite Nozomi's Onda's uneven play. But their opponent in the first round of the tournament is the crowned champion of Saitama, Hosei Urawa. Can the Warabis manage to slay the giant--the team whose absolute dominance has led to them not giving up even a single point in Saitama play the past two years?
Sumire Suo, Midori Soshizaki, and Non Onda enter a futsal tournament hoping to win the store credits to get themselves decent uniforms, but short handed, they form an improvised team, roping in Tsukuda and Ito from Kunogi Acadamy. They win their early matches, rising toward the finals, but waiting to play against them is a player who seems to hold a special grudge against Ito!
In the first round of the Saitama Prefecture Inter-High tournament, Nozomi Onda is finally demonstrating her talent and closing in on the opponents' goal! But moments later, the ball is stolen by Urawa's Alice Adatara only to have Adatara score a goal. Down by a goal with very little time left, can the Warabis find someone with the consistent skills to tie the game back up?!
The spirits of the girls of Warabi Seinan's girls' soccer team are far from broken, even after the loss against Urawa Hosei. They've even begun practice again. As a team the Warabis make an earnest effort to construct new offenses and defenses, but has any of the practice payed off? They'll find out as they take on the champion teams of the greater Tokyo area in an Interleague tournament!
The scene is Warabi Seinan, a high school in the Tokyo-adjacent prefecture of Saitama. And possibly because it is considered to be weak at women’s soccer, the team is “blessed” with an abundance of first-year students with strong, individualistic personalities, including Sumire Suo, Midori Soshizaki, Nozomi Onda, etc. But it’s with the addition of a new coach, the legend of Japanese women’s soccer, Naoko Nomi, that the Warabis are reborn. Still, in their baptismal first match, they are faced with the best high-school team in Japan, Kunogi Academy. The first-half score shows Kunogi’s overwhelming dominance, but can the Warabis turn it around in the second half?
The Warabis needed a strategy to combat the ace of the Eisen Funabashi team, Tae Kokubu. And the Warabis' answer is to change position for Onda and send in "Golgo the Assassin," Echizen. Can that turn around the game for them? On which team will the Goddess of Victory smile?
The JKFB Interleague Tournament, a gathering of some of the strongest girls' soccer teams in the greater Tokyo area, have entered their semifinal rounds. And the roadblock standing in the Warabis way is Eisen Funabashi High School which is the very team that defeated Kunogi Academy! The Warabis have taken the first point from the vaunted Eisen Funabashi defensive block. Have they actually defeated Eisen Funabashi's trump card?
The Warabis rack up a win against Eisen Funabashi in the Interleague semifinals, but their opponent in the finals is Korenkan High School. Led by their ace striker, Mika Kurusu, Korenkan took the title of "best in Japan" in the Inter-High tournament. The whistle blows on the showdown match!
For every athlete or sports fanatic who knows she's just as good as the guys. This is for fans of The Running Dream by Wendelin Van Draanen, Grace, Gold, and Glory by Gabrielle Douglass and Breakaway: Beyond the Goal by Alex Morgan. The summer before Caleb and Tessa enter high school, friendship has blossomed into a relationship . . . and their playful sports days are coming to an end. Caleb is getting ready to try out for the football team, and Tessa is training for cross-country. But all their structured plans derail in the final flag game when they lose. Tessa doesn’t want to end her career as a loser. She really enjoys playing, and if she’s being honest, she likes it even more than running cross-country. So what if she decided to play football instead? What would happen between her and Caleb? Or between her two best friends, who are counting on her to try out for cross-country with them? And will her parents be upset that she’s decided to take her hobby to the next level? This summer Caleb and Tessa figure out just what it means to be a boyfriend, girlfriend, teammate, best friend, and someone worth cheering for. “A great next choice for readers who have enjoyed Catherine Gilbert Murdock’s Dairy Queen and Miranda Kenneally’s Catching Jordan.”—SLJ “Fast-paced football action, realistic family drama, and sweet romance…[will have] readers looking for girl-powered sports stories…find[ing] plenty to like.”—Booklist “Tessa's ferocious competitiveness is appealing.”—Kirkus Reviews “[The Football Girl] serve[s] to illuminate the appropriately complicated emotions both of a young romance and of pursuing a dream. Heldring writes with insight and restraint.”—The Horn Book
With no soccer accomplishments to speak of during the entirety of Sumire Suo’s junior high school years, the young wing gets an odd offer. Suo’s main rival, Midori Soshizaki, invites her to join up on the same team in high school, with a promise that she’ll never let Suo “play alone.” It’s an earnest offer, but the question is whether Suo will take her up on it. Thus the curtain opens on a story that collects an enormous cast of individual soccer-playing personalities!
