Since the football (soccer) season of the National Sports Festival in Japan changed from fall to summer in 2002, the competition, local elimination round and daily training were expected to be carried out in an extremely hot environment. We therefore applied a type of intervention strategy to cope with hot weather competition and training for the female prefectural football team. Environmental conditions and body weight of players before and after activities were monitored for 3 months. We have also done the guidance in appropriate water intake during exercise, management of the players’ injuries and brief leg cooling for accelerating recovery from fatigue. The mean ambient temperature during the whole training period at evening was 32.0 ± 3.0 ˚C, and mean wet bulb globe temperature (WBGT) during the competition was 28.1 ± 2.3 ˚C. The mean body weight loss during the whole training period and games was 0.57 ± 0.2 kg, the percentage of dehydration was 1.15 ± 0.3 %. These results suggest that, even when environmental condition is severe, the players keep a good condition for a long training period. Consequently the team won the local area elimination round and placed fifth in the 2002 National Sports Festival under the hot conditions.

Psychological competitive ability is one of the most important factors in perform peak performance in soccer games. The purpose of this research was to clarify psychological competitive ability of the Universiade soccer players from Japan and Korea. The effects of psychological competitive ability were investigated using DIPCA. The results were as follows: 1. Japanese soccer players were relatively high in aggressiveness, but low in confidence, decisiveness, predictive ability, and judgment. 2. Korean soccer players were relatively high in aggressiveness and volition for self-realization, but low in self-control, ability to relax, and concentration. 3. Japanese soccer players were superior in concentration to Korean soccer players, while Korean soccer players were superior in volition for self-realization, confidence, decisiveness, predictive ability, and judgment to Japanese soccer players.

The knee extensor mechanism (hereafter referred to as the KEM) is one of the most common sites for overuse disorder that occurs in football players. The KEM overuse disorders, such as patellar tendinitis and Osgood-Schlatter’s disease, are assumed to be related to decreased flexibility in the KEM. Although it is important to check the KEM flexibility for the prevention of overuse disorders, a simple and quantitative measurement has yet to be established. The present study is an attempt to use a tissue hardness meter to evaluate the KEM flexibility. Under the assumption that elongation of the KEM due to knee flexion would increase the KEM tissue hardness, the relation between length and tissue hardness of the KEM in 40 knees of 20 healthy adults was investigated. Subjects were measured for their KEM length and their tissue hardness at the midpoint of the KEM using a tissue hardness meter in five knee positions: knee extended, knee fl exed at 30, 60, 90 degrees, and knee fully flexed. There was significant positive correlation between length and tissue hardness of the KEM. In conclusion, the KEM flexibility can be evaluated by the measurement of tissue hardness.

The present situation of women football (Soccer) in Europe is analyzed here with reference of statistics. Although women football has been widely accepted by many European nations, there still exist great differences in performance-level among the regions. After the remarkable success in the European Women Championship in England many sport scientists have become interested in the field of women football. Scientific analyses and related problems are also briefly discussed in this paper.