Development and the World — From the J to Overseas

Winning the league and lifting a cup. For a club, those are visible, easily understood successes. Yet what made the J.League truly revolutionary lay in another quiet endeavor advancing behind the wins and losses. That endeavor is the work of raising people. A child born in a town grows as a member of a club and eventually becomes a professional player. That player builds up still more strength and this time takes flight for the world’s stage. The J.League was, at the same time as a competitive collective for winning, a vast apparatus that kept producing the talent of the future. This revolution of development may have been the deepest change the J left to Japanese football.

The Town Raises the Club, the Club Raises the Players

J.League clubs are charged with one important obligation. That is to possess their own development organization. Not just a top team, but beneath it, age-graded teams arranged in stages — a high-school-age team, a middle-school-age team, an elementary-school-age team. This is set down as one of the conditions for playing in the J.League.

The J.League calls this system the academy. In order to produce even one more player who can shine as a professional, clubs built layer upon layer of developmental staircases beneath the top team. Children of the region enter at the very bottom of that staircase and climb one step at a time under their coaches’ guidance. And only those who reach the top set foot in the professional world as a member of the top team.

A deep philosophy was embedded in this development obligation. Merely buying up star players from elsewhere does not let a club take root in its region in the true sense. But if a child born and raised locally becomes a professional wearing the uniform of their own club, that player becomes the very hope of the town. An academy graduate excelling in the top team is an event that proves the bond between region and club in the most beautiful form.

Indeed, some clubs emerged that set a clear goal of keeping a high proportion of academy graduates within the top team. To raise, not to buy. To send out by one’s own hand, not to bring in from elsewhere. This philosophy lay at the root of the J.League’s development culture.

The Players Who Cross the Seas — A Supplier to the World

The talent born through development did not remain within the J.League forever. Players who built up their strength crossed the seas in search of a higher level. The J.League transformed into one of the world’s leading suppliers, sending outstanding talent out to Europe’s first-rate leagues.

The great forerunner of this was Hidetoshi Nakata. Having shown his presence to the world at the 1998 World Cup, Nakata transferred immediately afterward to a powerhouse league in Italy. Could a Japanese player hold his own on the world’s highest stage — with many people holding that question in their hearts, Nakata scored from his debut match and answered brilliantly. His challenge became a historic step that opened the road for those who would follow.

What accelerated the current further was Shinji Kagawa. Having made his mark at Cerezo Osaka, Kagawa transferred to the German giants Dortmund. What deserves attention is that the transfer was realized for an extremely low fee. Kagawa, who went to Germany for about the cost of the compensation for his development, then put on a spectacular display there. This is said to have prompted European scouts to turn their eyes all at once toward the J.League. ‘Japan still has cheap, excellent players lying dormant’ — such an assessment spread across the world.

After that, the flow from the J.League toward Europe continued without pause. There were players like Keisuke Honda who departed after building a record at domestic clubs, and players like Takefusa Kubo who debuted on the J’s stage from their teens and drew the world’s attention at a young age. The J.League became an indispensable gateway for Japanese football to connect with the world.

Talent in Circulation — The Back-and-Forth with the National Team

Players flowing overseas may appear at first glance to be a loss for the domestic league. Yet surveying the relationship between the J.League and the Japanese national team, a splendid circulation had been born there that cannot be dismissed as a simple outflow.

That circulation can be drawn like this. First, the J.League’s development organizations raise a town’s children into professional players. Those players accumulate experience on the J.League’s stage and are eventually selected for the national team. Players who show their strength with the national team are called upon by European clubs and cross the seas. And players who have been toughened abroad and become one step sturdier return once more to the national team and raise the quality of the team as a whole. Talent circulates round and round among the J.League, overseas, and the national team.

Eventually, an era arrived in which, looking at the Japanese national team’s roster, the majority was occupied by players competing in Europe. This is the clearest proof that the J.League has continuously produced and sent out world-class talent. Trace the source of the national team’s strength, and you will always arrive somewhere at the J.League’s academy or its development grounds. The J’s development had, before anyone noticed, become the very foundation of the grand story that is the Japanese national team.

In this way, the J.League matured into not a place that only competes over wins and losses, but a grand mechanism that raises people, sends them out to the world, and returns that fruit to the nation as a whole. A town’s club connects with the world, and a single child’s dream eventually becomes the strength of the Japanese national team. This was the quiet, yet sure, revolution the J.League brought about.

And while this story of development and the world lifted Japanese football as a whole, at the J.League’s feet yet another challenge was sprouting. In provincial towns that are neither Tokyo nor Osaka, people who held up their own clubs with pride were beginning to weave an entirely new story. Next, we will look at the passion and struggle of those provincial clubs.