Farewell, My Dear Cramer

After spending her midddle school days playing with the boys' soccer team, Nozomi's teacher convinces her to try playing on a girls' soccer team. Meanwhile, Sumire sees her own middle school career coming to an end, and her rival Midori declares that she'll join whatever school or club team Sumire picks. Sumire and Midori go to watch a practice match with Warabi Seinan. Even though Warabi gets blown out, Sumire finds herself drawn to Eriko Tase, and decides to play on the same team as her at Warabi. Later, after introductions, the girls all play an intra-squad scrimmage against each other. Sumire, Midori, and Eriko all end up on the same team, and manage to win the scrimmage, with the winning goal scored by a haughty girl named Aya. Afterwards, the former Japan women's national football team player Naoko Nōmi returns to Warabi to coach the girls' soccer team.

After introducing herself to the team, Naoko begins training the girls, but keeps punishing them with push-ups as she watches Nozomi putting no effort into practice. Shortly after practice, Naoko treats the team to her family's okonomiyaki, with an announcement that she set up a friendly match against the powerful Kunogi women's soccer team. When the matchday arrives, Kunogi plays a possession style and neutralizes Sumire on the field. Kunogi's coach later notes that Warabi is "parking the bus" against them, but it doesn't matter as Kunogi still scores several goals while barely letting Warabi out of their half of the field. Goro, the previous Warabi coach, asks Naoko what the point is of putting Warabi up against such powerful competition. Naoko responds that this game is a test of character, to see how the team will respond to adversity in the future.

The Kunogi team pours on the goals, taking seriously their coach's threat to keep them in reserve if they don't win with at least 10 goals and a clean sheet. While Sumire has all but given up on the match, Nozomi finds the competition exciting, and manages to rally the morale of her teammates to score at least one goal against Kunogi, though some poor decision-making by Aya frustrates Nozomi and her teammates. Sumire decides to get her head back in the game to spite the opposing right-back, and manages to get the ball to Nozomi, who ruins Kunogi's shutout in the dying seconds of the match.

Nozomi's goal is waved off by a foul Aya committed on the Kunogi goalkeepeer, though her Marseille turn impresses the coaches on both sides. The next day, after getting constant reminders of the team's 21-0 beatdown, Nozomi demands her coaches help with getting new members and better training. Sawa organizes a team-wide cooking group, hoping her nutritional science studies can help build up the team's endurance, though few of the girls have the skills to cook properly. Sawa and a few of the girls try to give pots of their food to the boys' soccer team, but they are blocked by the boys' soccer coach, who then claims they will be taking over the girls' field as well for practice. Meanwhile, Naoko reveals she has bought new uniforms for the girls' soccer team and thrown the old ones out, though her custom design shocks the girls' team.

The Warabi Principal is intimidated by the boys' soccer coach into giving them the girls' practice field, though he does give the girls team an alternate site farther away from the school. In addition, most of the girls' team agree that their coach's custom uniform design is hideous, but don't have the money to buy new ones. The girls' soccer team splits into two groups: Eriko and three of her teammates try to stalk the boys coach to gain leverage on him. The rest of the team follows Midori to Tobitakyū Station to enter a futsal tournament with a large gift certificate to a sporting goods store as the prize, but are one short of the minimum team size after Aya accidentally guides her senior teammates onto a wrong train. With time running out to register, the four Warabis who did show up -- Nozomi, Sumire, Sawa, and Midori -- end up bargaining with Mizuki and Haruna from the Kunogi girls team to join their team for the tournament.

Eriko's squad tries multiple attempts to blackmail the boys soccer coach into letting the girls team practice with his team, but their attempts backfire. Meanwhile, the mixed team of Warabi and Kunogi girls at the futsal pitch work their way up to the finals, where they face off against a team led by Rei Kutani, Haruna's former teammate in middle school who lacked technical talent and instead put all her efforts into being a physical soccer player. Despite Nozomi's attempts at goading her, Rei manages to score the winning goal. The Warabi girls take home the second prize of 30,000 Yen, and decide to work part-time jobs to make up the rest of the funds for new kits. Later, Gōro blackmails the boys coach into letting the girls team play occasional scrimmages with the boys, and the girls team jog to their new practice ground outside the school.

With their new kits acquired, the Warabis play their first official match against the Asuka Trade women's team. However, Nozomi gets too excited during the days leading up to the match, and plays while sleep-deprived, accidentally scoring the game-winning goal for Asuka with a diving header on her own team's net. Naoko punishes Nozomi by banishing her to the bench for the next game. The next day, Naoko gets Goro to bargain with the boys soccer coach to borrow a few boys for an intra-squad scrimmage, to help the Warabis practice against a physical opponent. During practice, Naoko and Goro argue over coaching styles, while Nozomi practices on a goal despite being benched for the next game.

While playing softball in PE class, Nozomi gets angry at Aya and kicks one of her pitches past her head, injuring her own foot. During the Warabis third group match against Kotesashi Seirin, Nozomi tries to hide her injury from the coach, but Goro notices her downgraded play and gives her one more chance before subbing her out. Nozomi responds by sending a through ball to Aya for the winning goal. Later, as the girls head to practice, they tie up a suspected stalker who turns out to be Kazuo Takahagi, a former pro soccer player. Kazuo tells the girls that Goro was considered the "Japanese Xavi" when he met him at a U-18 camp, but a few years later, Goro badly injured his right leg and never regained his form, so he decided to become a coach instead. However, his first coaching gig on a pro Japanese team fell apart when his radical changes upset the rest of the team and he was soon forced to resign. Later, the girls from Urawa Hosei notice that they will play Warabi Seinan in the first round of the national tournament.