It took 30 years for Japanese football to go from being a third-tier player in Asia to becoming the top player. Can China learn from this?

In 1993, when the Japanese J-League was established, the Japanese men's football team ranked 48th in FIFA, which was only slightly better than the Chinese men's football team, which ranked 54th. Thirty years later, in 2024, the Japanese men's football team will be ranked 15th in the FIFA rankings. In the 2022 Qatar World Cup, they defeated two traditional strong teams, Germany and Spain, and reached the top 16. During the same period, the FIFA ranking of the Chinese men's football team dropped to around 90th.

It took Japanese football 30 years to complete its counterattack from Asia's third-rate team to the world's top team. The question that Chinese fans repeatedly ask is whether China can learn from this path. The answer is not simple. The success of Japanese football is the superposition of multiple systemic factors. It is useless to learn one alone.

Starting point in 1993

The first J-League game was held at the National Arena on May 15, 1993, attracting 59,000 spectators. This was the beginning of professional football in Japan. Prior to this, Japanese football was a corporate amateur league, and the players were all company employees, and the level was far inferior to the Chinese League A.

The core concept of the J-League is to turn football into an industry. The J-League requires each club to have a complete youth training system including four echelons: U18, U15, U12, and U9. This mandatory rule allowed Japanese football youth training to be launched simultaneously from the day the professional league was born.

The bridge between Miura Zhiyang and Kallio

In 1990, the Japan Football Association hired Brazilian coach Kao Kao to coach the national team. He brought the Brazilian Samba football concept. At the same time, the Japan Football Association trained the first batch of players in Brazil, including Miura Tomoyo. Miura played in Brazil for 5 years and became the first generation idol of the J-League after returning to Japan.

This strategy of taking the initiative to go out and learn allowed Japanese football to reach the world-class level early on. During the same period, the Chinese men's football team hired British and Eastern European coaches, and their technical concepts were not as advanced as those of Brazil. The direction chosen at this step affects the direction of the next 30 years.

The elitization of campus football

The core of Japanese campus football is the National College Players’ Rights Competition, which is held in Tokyo from December to January every year. The final is held at the National Arena and is broadcast nationwide on television. Players at the final level can be directly signed by J-League clubs.

This direct train from campus to career makes the talent funnel of Japanese football particularly wide. There are 800,000 registered youth players in Japan, and 100 top rookies are selected from these 800,000 to enter the J-League every year. There are 50,000 registered youth players in China, and the base number is 16 times different. The difference in results is even greater.

Saburo Kawabuchi’s 30-Year Plan

Saburo Kawabuchi, the former chairman of the Japan Football Association, proposed the 100-year plan in 1993, with the goal of the Japanese men's football team winning the World Cup in 2050. This ultra-long-term plan allows Japanese football to have the patience to conduct youth training.

Another core concept of Saburo Kawabuchi is to let players study abroad. In 1998, he personally helped Hidetoshi Nakata negotiate a contract with Perugia in Serie A, ushering in the era of Japanese players studying abroad. For the next 30 years, the Japan Football Association has been pushing players to go to Europe. Currently, about 80% of the Japanese men's football team plays in the five major European leagues.

Global distribution of overseas players

In 2024, the players of the Japanese men's football team in Europe's top leagues include Kaoru Mizuki, Brighton Kamada, Lazio Kamada, Hiro Endo Liverpool, Kenyo Tomiyasu Arsenal, Junya Ito Rennes, Ritsu Freiburg Don'an, Kubo Sociedad, etc., a total of about 25 people.

This collective stay abroad allows Japanese players to compete against top opponents every week. The intensity of the national team competition is not a challenge but the norm for them. In the 2022 World Cup, Japan defeated Germany 2-1, and 9 of the 11 starters played in Europe. This kind of structural advantage is completely lacking in the Chinese men's football team.

The persistence of Japanese football technology flow

Japanese football has been firmly following the technical route since 1993, neither learning English long passes nor Italian defensive counterattacks. This persistence allows Japanese players to practice the same technical system since childhood, and they can seamlessly transition to the national team level.

The core of the technical flow is to control the ball and accelerate short passes, which is characterized by low physical confrontation but fine skills. This style of play is suitable for smaller Asians, allowing Japanese players to capitalize on their strengths and avoid their weaknesses. The playing style of the Chinese men's football team changes every few years, and the players are always adapting to the new system and have not developed their own style.

The cultural boost of football comics

The two comics, Tsubasa and Slam Dunk, have influenced generations of Japanese people. Tsubasa Ohsora, the protagonist of Tsubasa, has become the idol of generations of children in Japan. Tomohiro Miura, Keisuke Honda, and Yu Nagatomo all publicly said that they started playing football because of watching Tsubasa.

This promotion of popular culture has given Japanese football a huge mass base. Every child wants to be a soccer player, and every parent supports their children playing football. China has never had a football IP of similar magnitude. Instead, basketball relied on the popularity of Slam Dunk and Yao Ming and Kobe to steal away a large number of young people who should belong to football.

The core that China cannot learn

China cannot learn that the core of Japanese football is patience. Japanese football has stuck to one direction for 30 years, while Chinese football has changed its policy every six years. The decision-making of the Japan Football Association is led by professionals, while the decision-making of the Chinese Football Association is led by officials within the system. This institutional difference makes it impossible for Chinese football to replicate Japan's 30-year run.

What Chinese football can learn is the details. For example, we can learn from Japan's campus player rights competition system to establish an elite channel, and we can learn from Japan's international youth training and send players to low-level European leagues for training. However, without Japanese-style strategic persistence, these details can only improve partial improvements and cannot achieve a qualitative breakthrough.

China’s real bottleneck

The real bottleneck of Chinese football is not technology or youth training, but the system. The resources of the Chinese sports system will always be given priority to Olympic gold medal projects, and football has been marginalized for decades. Unless this system changes, Chinese football will never have a real renaissance.

What football requires is not gold medals but patience and systems. The Japanese spent 30 years doing this, but the Chinese have yet to find a policy that can last for 30 years. This is the deepest problem in Chinese football, and it is also why China basically cannot learn the essence from Japan.

The attitude of learning is more important than whether you can learn it

Whether Chinese football can learn from Japan or not, this discussion itself reflects the confusion of Chinese football. In the past 30 years, Japanese football has never struggled with who to follow. Since 1993, it has firmly followed its own path.

Really strong teams don't need to learn from others, they already know the path they want to take. Chinese football is still confused about who to follow, which shows that it has not found its own path fundamentally. This is the issue that Chinese football should face most.