The men's under-23 teams from Spain and Japan that will play the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games will play a friendly before the start of the competition in the Japanese city of Kobe on July 17, as announced today by the Japanese Federation (JFA).
The match will be played at the Kobe's Noevir Stadium (west), where Andrés Iniesta's Vissel Kobe plays as host.
The match will be part of the Kirin Challenge Cup, an annual friendly tournament usually played by the Japanese senior team., but that in this case it will be played as a single party due to the pandemic, as communicated by the JFA.
This Japan-Spain will surely be the last preparation for the big date for both teams, since it will be played six days before the opening ceremony of the Games and five before the Olympic tournament starts, which starts a day earlier (on July 22) than the rest of the Tokyo 2020 competitions.
The JFA has said that Kobe's game will be played under “measures to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus”, although it has not explained whether or not it will have an audience in the stands. something that has not yet been decided by the Tokyo 2020 organizing committee.
Spain won its ticket to these Olympic Games by becoming champion in the 2019 European Under-21 Championship, while the Japanese were automatically classified as hosts of the Olympics.
The men of Luis de la Fuente, one of the teams with the most weight in the competition, still do not know their group or their rivals from the first phase of Tokyo 2020, since there are still two (both from CONCACAF) to qualify from the 16 teams that will compete for the medals.
Japan has been automatically seeded in group A and will play its first three games at the Tokyo Olympic Games, Saitama 2002 and Yokohama International on July 22, 25 and 28, respectively.