@Detoxive
And the manga's been pretty explicit about the gap j-youth teams have against regular ones?
Esperion has:
1. a pro team plus sponsorships that finances its youth team. they have incredible facilities in comparison to regular youth clubs.
2. an A team who are the perennial winner of the premier league, the highest division in u-18 football in japan while their B team plays in the third division.
3. a team composed of the best youth prospects in tokyo, training in the best facilities and coaches japan can offer.
While Musashino has:
1. a good ground thanks to the club's origin but they can only use half of it for an hour daily.
2. a team composed of youth club rejects but weren't good enough to get scouted by powerhouse high schools that play in premier/prince.
The whole premise of this arc has always been an esperion team that's under performing based on the expectations a club of its stature has
vs.
an over performing musashino that came out of nowhere and has won all of its games so far.