The Remarkable Rise of Japan's National Football Team

Japan home to 125 million people the world's third largest economy and increasingly a national football team which is starting to challenge the world's Elite Japan beat two former world champions in Germany and Spain at the 2022 World Cup to not only progress from but top what had been described as the tournament's group of death and they only lost on penalties against Croatia who have made the top three of the last two World Cups in the round of 16. at the 2018 World Cup in Russia Japan beat Colombia Andrew with Senegal and it took Belgium until the 94th minute having twice fought to come from behind to finally see off Japan in one of the games of the tournaments since then Japan have reached the semi-finals of the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 where they thrashed France 4-0 and only lost an extra time against Spain they have risen to become the highest ranked Asian national team team and they just battered Germany 4-1 in their own backyard today the J-1 League ranks as the 20th best league in the world by the global football rankings just one place below Argentina's Primera Division which is the highest ranking of any Asian League including the free-spending Saudi pro league throughout Europe whether it be daichi kamadar Lazio or Brighton's kauru matoma and recent Liverpool signing with Taro Endo in the Premier League Japanese players aren't just competing at the highest level they're excelling it wasn't always thus prior to 1998 so just 25 years ago Japan had never even qualified for the FIFA World Cup when they finally did only four years before co-hosting the tournament with South Korea every single one of their players played their Club football in Japan and they lost every game ranking as the second worst team at the tournament Japan didn't even have a professional football league and so 1993 and they had never won a game at the AFC Asian cup let alone the tournament before 1992. in 1992 though Japan created its 100 Year Vision a strategy and plan to form 100 professional clubs and to win the World Cup within the next hundred years less than a third of the way into that project Japan is well ahead of schedule with more than 60 professional clubs already and a handful of giant killings under their belt so sit back relax and join me on a journey to Japan as we take a look at the rise of Japanese football how it has been made possible and what the future may hold for the samurai blue Japan's comeback win against Germany in their opening game of the 2022 World Cup at the time seemed like one of the stories and upsets of the tournament Germany as four-time world champions might not have been in the form of their lives but were still heavily favored Japan for all of their progress had still never won a competitive fixture against a major footballing nation in the entire history of the national team and yet looking back perhaps Japan's win or not have come as such a surprise Japan went on to be not just the 2014 World Cup winners Germany but also the 2010 World Cup winner Spain and Qatar and in their 4-1 win against Germany in Wolfsburg just last week Japan had 11 shots on target to Germany's three this was not a freak result then like Saudi Arabia beating Argentina this was an ailing superpower coming up against a gifted energetic and well-organized group of players almost all of whom play their trade in Europe the winning goal scored by substitute sir Kumar asano in the 83rd minute seemed to be a microcosm of all that was good about Japan and everything that was wrong with Germany the lofted ball forward from a free-kick by koitakura ought to have been easily dealt with by Germany but center-back santonia rudiger and Nico schlotterbeck were caught out of position as the Europeans pushed for a winner meanwhile the hapless Nicholas Zula played Asana on site even when once the danger ought to have been obvious schlotterbeck still didn't Sprint so catch up with asano almost as though he doubted his ability to take them all down and fashion a shot on goal maybe it was the degree of arrogance and complacency about the caliber of Germany's opponents or maybe it was just tired legs and atrocious defending but either way asano made sure that both Germany and schlotterbeck paid for their misjudgments this wasn't the Japan of yesteryear the Plucky underdogs who lacked the physical and Technical attributes required to do damage at the highest level asano a substitute for Japan is a regular starter in the Bundesliga as were seven of his teammates there was no fear for Japan anymore this was a level of opposition that they were accustomed to coming up against on a weekly basis the Bundesliga has become a home away from home for Japanese players in recent years and the launch pad in Europe for many of their careers the first Japanese footballer that supplies trade in Europe yasahiko okadara joined Bundesliga side FC cologne in 1977 becoming the first professional Japanese player in the process throughout his nine years playing in Germany with cologne herter Berlin and Verde Bremen okadera wasn't picked by Japan who were an abysmal national team at the time despite having been their star man before his move other 2022 World Cup by contrast all but six members of Japan's 26-man Squad and 10 of their starting 11 played their club for all overseas everything started to change for Japan during the early 1990s riding the wave of an enormous economic boom and sick of being atrocious at football the j-league was founded in 1992 and the inaugural season took place in 1993. up to that point there had never been a professional football league in Japan the Japan soccer league which the j-league replaced as the Top Flight of Japanese football was officially amateur and made up of corporate owned and run franchises with little attachments of the local areas in which they just so happen to be based at any one time teams included Mazda Mitsubishi Motors Nissan Motor Hitachi and Toyota and all of the players were employees of those companies who weren't paid to play football but simply represented the companies who actually employed them the worst some instances of shammatorism in which companies only rarely paid employees for their playing abilities but broadly speaking the JSL was an amateur league with pockets of semi-professionalism breaking out here and there the JSL itself was only founded in 1965 after the German Football Federation sent detmar Kramer to help assist with the developments of Japanese football at the start of the 1960s they probably regretted that decision in 2022 Kramer was in instrumental in a series of initiatives within the Japanese game as Japan looked to create a more competitive football team in anticipation of hosting the 1964 Summer Olympics they included a program for training new coaches and the formation of an Nationwide League though the latter wouldn't come into existence until after the Olympics nonetheless Japan caused a major upset by beating Argentina 3-2 at the Olympics and at the 1968 Olympic Games three years after the jsl's creation Japan beat France Drew with Spain and Brazil and overcame the host nation Mexico to claim a famous bronze medal the national team's success of the 1968 games led to a momentary spike in crowds and the sports popularity during the late 60s and early 70s but that window of opportunity was never seized upon and by the time that the j-league was created Japanese football was on its knees though Japan is one of the biggest and Rich richest Nations on Earth not unlike in the United States association football has long struggled to gain the kind of Supremacy that it enjoys throughout so much of the world sumo wrestling is Japan's national sport and has enjoyed great popularity along with a number of other martial arts since the 17th century meanwhile baseball was brought to Japan from America in the 1870s and has for a long time now been the nation's most popular participatory and spectator sport Japanese football always faced an uphill challenge then but the Advent of professionalism would at least give it a Fighting Chance immediately money began flooding into their sport the top scorer in the League's inaugural season was former Inter Milan Monaco and Argentina forward Ramon Diaz who backed 28 goals after joining Yokohama mourinos from River Plate at the age of 33. Diaz was soon joined by fellow big name South American and European players like Dragon stokovic PR litvarski Gary lineker Leonardo dungar and Salvatore scalachi as companies and investors look to rapidly popularized football and increase crowds before being appointed as Arsenal manager in 1996 arson Wenger spent a year coaching Nagoya Grandpa state in the J League a job which he took after he had already won both the league and title and the coup de France with Monaco undoubtedly the most significant overseas arrival into the Japanese game though was Brazilian Legend zico one of the greatest footballers of all time zico had been retired for almost two years during which time Brazil's president had appointed him as the country's minister of sports when Japanese outfits summer Tomo Metals approached him in 1991. someatomo metals owned and operated by the Kashima based Mining Company of the same name were in the second tier of amateur Japanese football at the time but were determined to win promotion and try to secure a place in the professional J League once the league was founded zico accepted the offer then aged 38 and in his first season which was the jsl's last season he was the second division's top scorer with 21 goals in 22 games helping summer Tomo secure a most unlikely entry into Japan's newly formed professional Top Flight as teams began professionalizing and decoratizing for the transition sumatomo metals became Kashima antlers but few people gave them much of a chance in the newly formed League Ritson offers a Small Town Club Kashima with a population of fewer than 60 000 people would be competing against the Giants of Tokyo Osaka and Nagoya zico was kashima's secret weapon though even when touching 40 years old scoring a hat-trick against Nagoya Grandpa site in the first ever Jaylee game carrying his teams at top spot in the League's opening phase second overall and glory in the sunsory championship against League winners Verdi Kawasaki today Kashima antlers are the most successful team in the history of the J league with a record eight championships and remain highly competitive despite the relatively tiny size of the city the Kashima soccer stadium which hosted three games in the 2002 World Cup has a capacity of over 40 000 equivalent to 60 percent of the City's population and quite rightly a statue of zico takes pride of place at the ground zico's Japanese Legacy stretches far beyond the small city of Kashima though zico's Talent temperaments and professionalism immediately Charmed with Japanese culture nicknames simply football God by the Japanese zico became Kashima antlers technical director after retiring at 41. he managed Japan's national team between 2002 and 2006 and he has been back Shimmer antlers as a technical director since 2018. although the J League started out like most cash-rich emerging leagues by signing aging big name players that hasn't been its raise on datra with one or two notable exceptions for a very long time that has been partly through design Japan have been methodical in researching the best practices for growing a league improving a national team and developing a talent and very quickly learned that that wasn't how best to do it and partly through necessity because Japan suffered an economic crisis during the 1990s from the mid-1980s a price bubble emerged in Japanese stocks in real estate which burst in the early 1990s the Japanese economy stagnated during the 1990s following three decades of extraordinary growth in what became known as The Lost decade between 1960 and 1990 Japan's GDP Rose from 44 billion dollars to 3.1 trillion dollars an increase of 7 000 during the 1990s however Japan's GDP began to fall in nominal terms along with wages in real terms Japan's GDP is actually lower now in 2023 than it was in 1995. with the Lost decade becoming the last 20 years the lost 30 years and increasingly now often just the Lost decades Japan's economic downturn caused short-term damage to the J league as teams cup budgets star players departed and crowds briefly dwindled but long term it brought benefits young people who had become incredibly marketized materialistic and career driven during Japan's economic boom became increasingly disillusioned with that lifestyle and in many instances turned their attention to leisure activities like football instead teams were forced to focus on domestic Player Development as their ability to sign foreign Superstars was thwarted and Japan's brand new professional football clubs very quickly found out that it was wise to operate a sustainable business model having qualified for the AFC Asian cup for the very first time in 1988 where they failed to win a single game Japan hosted and won the 1992 Asian cup during the same year that the J League was formed there was another reason and a much more unusual one aside from the advents of professionalism why Japan started to produce more Talent during this exact period in 1981 Japanese manga artist yaichi Takahashi created a series entitled Captain Tsubasa which told the story story of Tsubasa azora's career in football Captain Tsubasa became one of the most successful manga series of all time with over 90 million copies in circulation worldwide as of 2023 and it played a major role in popularizing football in Japan hiratoshi Nakata arguably Japan's greatest and certainly the nation's most famous footballer of all time who won 77 caps for the national team a Serie A title at Roma and was Thrice nominated for the Ballon d'Or cited Captain Tsubasa as being the reason why he first became interested in football strange as it may sound to an anglophone audience Captain sumasa's influence actually stretches far beyond Japan and the likes of Alessandro del Piero Fernando Torres Zinedine Zidane Andres Iniesta and Lionel Messi have all cited the series as major influences in their football development perhaps that is one of the reasons If Only a Man one why Torres and Iniesta chose to play in Japan late in their careers in conjunction with the foundation of the J League The 100-year Vision outlined Japan's lofty Ambitions though it was over a very long time frame creating a hundred professional football clubs and winning a World Cup is a tremendous ambition for a nation which at the time had zero professional clubs and are never even qualified for the World Cup England just for context which has the most professional football clubs of any country in Europe has just over a hundred professional clubs and has only recently surpassed that Mark with the increased number of professional teams outside of the 92 premier league and Football League teams Japan's progress towards that goal has been steady but constant the Jaylee Grew From 10 teams in 1992 to 18 by 1998 and in 1999 it became the J League Division one now the J-1 league as the J A2 League was founded initially with a further 10 professional teams now there are 22 teams in the J2 league and the j3 league founded in 2013 has 20 professional teams all of its own the end result is that there are 60 professional football clubs in Japan in 2023 60 of the nation's Target just 31 of the way into their 100-year Vision to further Aid the development and creation of yet more professional clubs not only clubs can apply to the j-league to be granted 100-year plan Club Status clubs at any level of the Japanese football pyramid are allowed to apply for the status and if successful the J League will provide them with the necessary resources and expertise to facilitate the transition to professionalism which is the main criteria for j3 League promotion one of the reasons why Japan has such a laser-like focus on expanding professionalism is not just to expand the sport and its popularity though that obviously helps but to try and spread the sport throughout the entire country with every professional Club capable of scouting and developing young players so that no one slips through the cracks as of 2023 41 out of Japan's 47 prefectures have at least one professional Club but the J league isn't about to settle at that having the club's infrastructure and young people who actually want to play the sport is one thing but developing them into outstanding players is another once again though Japan has a plan and it is one that is constantly evolving Japan's strategy has long been to obsessively research what works in other countries and what doesn't and then to steal the best bits from all of them in 2016 the Jaylee carried out an extensive facts finding Mission visiting academies and Development Centers all over Europe feeling that their own youth develop development programs had become too generic adopting a one-size-fits-all approach which had let certain players down the Jaylee became particularly interested in academies that had highly tailored and personalized development programs for each of their players one of the finest examples of this they felt was that West Ham United the J League was so impressed that they began staff sharing with the Hammers before poaching West Ham's Academy director Terry Wesley in 2019 and appointing him as the League's technical director following their fact-finding mission the j-league launched a new long-term plan in 2016 based upon their findings entitled project DNA which stands for developing natural abilities the aim is to censor everything around the player themselves and maximize their potential it used to be hard for young players to get opportunities in the J League or at least to get regular starts until they were in their 20s Japanese culture puts great emphasis on respecting seniority with a highly hierarchical bet which used to extend to the world of football in recent years however that has started to change increasingly when it comes to Japanese footballers if you're good enough you're old enough there are eight 16 year olds who have been handed their debuts in the J League all of them since 2005 and a whopping 45 teenagers have been handed their Top Flight debuts in the last two years alone the results have been emphatic not only are young players beginning to play a starring role in the J League the most talented among them are increasingly beginning to be snapped up by European teams as well when Japan co-hosted the World Cup in 2002 only two of their players played their Club football overseas and it was none when they qualified for their first World Cup in 1998. now it is basically their entire Squad only four members of Japan's Squad in the current International break play their Club football in Japan and they have won a combine total of seven caps between them the likes of takafusa Kubo joined the Barcelona Academy when he was just 10 years old and later Real Madrid and he has played 130 La Liga games at the age of 22. takahiro tomiasu joined Japanese owned Belgian outfit synthroiden when he was just 19 years old before joining Arsenal viable on year now age 24 and Brighton star kauru matoma didn't actually make his professional debut in the j-league until the age of 23. after he had earned a University degree writing his thesis on dribbling but two seasons at Kawasaki frontale was all that it took to convince Brighton that it was worth signing him for three million pounds that has proven to be a very shrewd decision and following his debut campaign at the AmEx and a starring role in Japan's 2000 and 22 World Cup success Midsomer is Comfortably worth in excess of 50 million pounds now and given that it's Brighton you can probably double that if it's Chelsea asking stick another zero on the end European clubs now trust that when they sign players from the J League they will be getting players with the physical Technical and mental attributes required to compete at the highest level typically for Bargain Basement fees I spoke in a recent video about the plight of the Mexico National team about how sky-high valuations in Liga MX make foreign clubs reluctant to take the risk on Mexican players and the opposite is basically true of the J League the League's most expensive sale is Brazilian International Hulk who joined Porto 4A reported fee of 19 million euros half of which was actually paid to his unnamed third-party owners that was over 15 years ago since then there hasn't been a single J Lee player sold for more than seven and a half million euros despite the caliber of some of the League's exports in recent years you need only ask Celtic fans who have had enormous success not only with j-league players in recent years but also a j League manager in their former boss and now Tottenham manager Ange poster Goblin it used to be thought and said that Japanese players were often quick hard-working and technically capable but that they lack size strength and stamina that was likely always a bit of a stereotype though certainly the more professional the J league has become the less adapting the players had to do upon moving to Europe but to the extent that it was true that has narrowed in recent years meanwhile the necessity of being big and powerful in football has greatly diminished Japan still had the fourth shortest Squad at the 2022 World Cup but that is hardly of any great concern given that they were tied with Argentina who won the tournament and they never seemed especially vulnerable to balls into the box set pieces and aerial modules where Japan do still have a problem is perhaps in goal A.G kawashima who has been capped 95 times but is now 40 years old and without a club was named in Japan's 2022 World Cup squad though 34 year old shimuzu as Paul's goalkeeper shuchi Gonda was eventually given the nod between the sticks both have since been dropped from Japan's Squad entirely with 24 year old Kazuki osako who is one of Japan's few J league players contracted to samfreka Hiroshima winning his fifth International cup since 2019 and Japan's thumping win against Germany that is the area where Japan are most desperately crying out for an international class player but at fullback too there is a lack of quality death and Japan don't have any one outstanding Center forward none of their forwards for instance from feyenoord's iasio Ada Tokyo and daisen Maid are at Celtic have hit double figures for the national team as of yet with most of Japan's goals actually coming from Midfield those are minor weaknesses in what is generally considered to be a Japanese golden generation now I'm not sure how well that assessment will age this may be the best team that Japan has ever had in fact it certainly is but they have essentially been on a journey of near-constance improvement for the last 30 years the creation of the j-league its expansion expert focus on Youth Development using best practices a German a Brazilian a Manga comic co-hosting the 2002 World Cup winning in extraordinary fashion the 2011 Women's World Cup an economic boom an economic crisis and the mass migration of Japanese footballers to Europe have all contributed to the popularization and vastly improved standard of Japanese football and of Japan's national team over the last 30 years but there is little reason to believe though we have reached an end point of that Journey or an inevitable Peak as I began this video by stating Japan is a country of 125 million people and the third largest economy in the world what held football back for over a century was a lack of popularity professionalism and Central planning now the country has all three in abundance since 2013 in every year other than 2018 football has been the number one response when Elementary School boys uphold on their ideal careers in Japan ahead of baseball football has an overtaken baseball yet by any means and maybe it never will but it has gained enormous ground and enough to give Japan a more than sufficient pool of players to competes only England with four has more fully professional Nationwide football leagues than Japan and it's not Unthinkable that Japan could become the next country to reach that Milestone the not only game in Japan is growing just as fast as the professional ranks and the all-japan high school soccer tournament averages crowds of 15 to 20 000 at games and over 50 000 for its annual final no other under 18 football tournaments anywhere else in the world even comes close as for Central planning Japanese football is a well-oiled machine unlike other late movers whether that be China or Saudi Arabia the Japanese haven't tried to run before they can walk they experimented with that briefly when the j-league first launched and quickly realized that it wasn't the basis for successful and sustainable growth and developments Japan's 100 Year vision is less exciting admittedly than XI jinping's plans for China to become a world-class team by 2030 win the World Cup in the next 15 years and to have become a football superpower by 2050 but it it is also a lot more realistic and unlike China's plans it hasn't already spontaneously combusted crushing and burning in catastrophic fashion just yet in fact it is well ahead of schedule reflecting the excellent work that has been done by an awful lot of people since and indeed in the build-up to 1992. Japan are simultaneously underdogs and giant Killers whilst also being Underachievers and sleeping Giants themselves right now they're perceived as the Plucky underdogs because of historic underachievements and how late they were to take football seriously but if Japan can go from nothing to defeating Germany and Spain at a World Cup in only 30 years of professional football which is exactly what they've done they might not be underdogs for long this is a nation with almost Limitless football potential and the Land of the Rising Sun might just become the land of a football superpower a a lot sooner than some people realize that is it for today's video but thank you all very much as ever for watching hit the like button if you enjoyed it I sincerely hope that was the case let me know your thoughts Down Below in the comments and of course make sure that you're subscribed and have notifications turned on both at this channel hrtc Salmons and my second Channel alfiepot Sama both of which should be on your screens now along with a couple of videos that you might fancy watching after this one you could also find me on Twitter or on Instagram via the username at hrtc sevens on both and all of the links to do so and much more should be down in the video description below cheers thank you

Channel: HITC Sevens

Views: 324,899

Keywords: HITC Sevens, Football, Soccer, Japan, Rise, National Team, International, Asia, World Cup, Premier League, J League, J1 League, Documentary, National, Team, Footballers, Players, Youth, Academy, Remarkable

Id: KRjNA2j2Dbs

Length: 29min 40sec (1780 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 13 2023