The Age of the Exports — From Hidetoshi Nakata to the World

In the summer of 1998, a single young man crossed the sea entirely on his own. Hidetoshi Nakata, twenty-one years old. The number 7 who had just made his world debut at the France World Cup was moving to Perugia, in Italy’s Serie A, the very heartland of European football.

It was a moment when, quietly but decisively, the tide of Japanese football turned. Until then, “the world” had been, for Japanese players, something glimpsed from afar — in a tournament held once every four years, or in the occasional friendly match. Nakata, by contrast, leapt into the very center of that world, taking his whole life with him. Every weekend, in the highest league on earth, against the best players on earth, he would compete — and a Japanese was about to make that daily reality his own for the first time.

Alone, to Serie A

The Italy that Nakata chose was, at the time, one of the fiercest leagues in the world, where master players from across the globe gathered. Its defensive organization was said to be the best anywhere, and burly defenders came at you without mercy. Could a slender young man from Asia survive in those rough waters? Could a Japanese hold his own there? To that question, which so many asked half in doubt, Nakata flung back an answer in his very first match.

In September 1998, the opponent in Perugia’s opening fixture was the powerhouse Juventus. Nakata scored twice, including his first goal since the transfer, and left a vivid impression against one of Italy’s great clubs. He drew exceptional praise even from the major local papers, and the young man who had come from the unknown Far East captured the talk of Serie A overnight.

Having produced results at Perugia, Nakata went on to climb the stairs of Serie A. After transferring to Roma midway through a season, he tasted the elation of a league title (the Scudetto) as well. Then, in 2001, he moved to Parma for a transfer fee said at the time to be the highest ever for an Asian player. A young man from the Far East had become a “highly valued commodity” in the European football market — and that in itself was proof that the value of Japanese football had been recognized by the world.

Hidetoshi Nakata retired after the 2006 Germany World Cup, still only twenty-nine years old. From his vivid arrival to his retirement, he proved consistently — not in words but in results — the fact that “even a Japanese can compete in the world.” But what Nakata truly left behind was not the footprints of one man alone. Beyond the door he had pried open by himself, those who followed came pouring in like an avalanche — that great current was Nakata’s greatest parting gift.

The Generation That Made the Door an Everyday Thing — Honda and Kagawa

Those who walked boldly down the road Nakata had opened, and widened it, were the exports of the 2010s. Their symbol was Keisuke Honda.

Honda, who had come into his own at Nagoya Grampus, crossed over in 2008 to VVV-Venlo in the Netherlands. It was by no means a glamorous transfer. Yet Honda carved out his next steps with his own feet. In 2010 he moved to the Russian powerhouse CSKA Moscow. In the Russian league, hardly familiar to a Japanese of that day, he stood on the Champions League stage as well and built up a solid record.

Then, in January 2014, he finally joined the Italian giants AC Milan. The number Honda chose there was 10, the symbol of the ace. He chose, of his own will, to wear the number that the historic masters of the world had carried. The bold pronouncements that earned him the nickname “big mouth” were, for him, no mere bravado but declarations of resolve meant to drive himself to greater heights. Rather than being lifted up by someone else, he spoke of his own value himself and produced his own transfers, carving out his own way — and that figure changed the very idea of what a move abroad could be.

In the same generation there was another player who must not be forgotten: Shinji Kagawa, raised at Cerezo Osaka. Kagawa, who moved to Borussia Dortmund in Germany in 2010, gave the Bundesliga a shock. As the heart of the team he led its attack and became one of the architects of back-to-back league titles in the 2010–11 and 2011–12 seasons. A player from Asia shining at the center of a European title race — that was a sight unimaginable a generation earlier.

That performance moved even the world’s foremost clubs. In 2012, Kagawa became the first Japanese to transfer to Manchester United. As a member of one of the world’s elite big clubs he contributed to a Premier League title and recorded what is said to be the first hat-trick by an Asian in the Premier League. If Nakata had shown that “even a Japanese can hold his own,” Kagawa showed that “a Japanese can shine at the heart of a big club.”

The spread did not stop with Honda and Kagawa alone. Yuto Nagatomo crossed from FC Tokyo to Italy, and in 2011 to the Serie A giants Inter. As a left-back who ran tirelessly in both attack and defense, he seized a regular place in the highest league in the world. Shinji Okazaki, Maya Yoshida and others — players of differing positions and differing characters — each found their own place in Europe. The exports, who in Nakata’s day could be counted on one’s fingers, gained much greater depth from this generation onward.

What they gained abroad was not only technique and tactics. In a foreign land where neither language nor culture got through, they fought bitterly with foreign players over a regular place, lost it, and clawed their way back. Far from family and friends, cast aside without mercy when results did not come — within such a raw and exposed world of competition, the players had to question their own ability from the ground up. A player praised as “skilled” in Japan was confronted, in the wider world, with “still not enough.” And yet only those who had felt that severity on their own skin came to acquire the world’s standard in the true sense. The power to turn setbacks into nourishment became the exports’ greatest weapon.

And above all, the greatest change that the generation of Honda and Kagawa brought was that it turned crossing the sea from a “special adventure” into “a natural option.” The door Nakata had opened alone, they passed through in great numbers, and left it flung wide open for the generations behind them.

An Age When Individuals Scatter Across the World

The presence of the exports transformed the national team itself. When players who had been buffeted day after day in Europe gathered with the national side, they did not shrink even when facing the world’s strongest sides. Rather, a confidence — “I usually face even tougher opponents” — gave their play composure and force. The “timidity” the Japanese national team had once felt on the world’s great stages faded, little by little, as the number of exports grew.

Beyond the road that Honda and Kagawa had made ordinary, the number of those who followed swelled until it could no longer be counted. For promising young players, aiming for Europe was no longer a dream but a natural premise of a career.

An Age When Nearly the Whole National Team Plays in Europe

Time moved on further, and by the time the 2020s arrived, the landscape of Japanese football had become something other than what it had been in Nakata’s day. The word “export” had once been a special name for a small handful of players within the national team. Now, however, that word has almost lost its meaning, for the great majority of the players who line up for the national team play day in and day out at clubs in Europe.

The symbol of this was the explosive spread of young talent. Takefusa Kubo, nurtured in Spain, is said to have become a mainstay at Real Sociedad and elsewhere, building a place for himself on the world’s stage with technique and creativity. Kaoru Mitoma, who raised his reputation in a single stroke at England’s Brighton, set Europe alight with dribbling that left opponents behind. As anchors of the defense, Wataru Endo has reportedly broken into the midfield of a great club in Liverpool, and Takehiro Tomiyasu has been reported to have experienced Europe’s front lines at Arsenal and elsewhere. Beyond them, players spanning the generations — Daichi Kamada, Takumi Minamino, Ritsu Doan and others — struggle day after day to take the leading roles in their respective leagues.

If the generation of Honda and Kagawa made “playing in Europe” an everyday thing, the generation of Kubo and Mitoma is trying to take it further still and make “producing results at the center of Europe” an everyday thing. The door Nakata opened, and the road Honda and Kagawa widened, have thus been handed down, surely, as a chain of three generations.

This maturity shows plainly in the national team’s results too. The 2022 Qatar World Cup. In a group called “the group of death,” Japan faced Germany and Spain — two nations that had known the summit of the world — and beat them both, each time by coming from behind. With two wins that made the whole world doubt its eyes, Japan claimed first place in the group and reached the round of 16. In the knockout stage, the match against Croatia dragged into extra time, and Japan painfully swallowed its tears in the penalty shootout; but it had truly become a team that could trade blows head-on with the strongest sides.

In this way Japanese football crossed one great turning point. Until then, Japan’s strength had been concentrated in a single “point” — the national team. But in the age of the exports, that strength spread out into countless “lines.” At clubs all over Europe, Japanese players fought the world’s standard as a daily routine and brought that experience back to the national team. The foundation of Japanese football was stretched out beyond domestic limits, woven across the whole world.

That current could no longer be stopped. The door Nakata opened alone, the generation of Honda and Kagawa turned into an everyday sight, and the generation of Kubo and Mitoma pushes wider still. Dozens, and eventually hundreds, of players follow on. And this Japanese football story of “challenging the world” did not belong to the men’s national team alone. In the very same era, another team had been quietly and steadily building its strength out of sight — and the day would come when it stood at the very summit of the world itself and gave heart to an entire wounded nation. Next time, the final chapter: the story of Nadeshiko Japan, and of the hundred years to come.