30 Years After the “Doha Tragedy,” Ruy Ramos Still Dreams About Winning

God only gives us trials that we can overcome. These are words from the New Testament that Ruy Ramos, who turned 66 this year, cherishes. Yet, on October 28, 1993, Ramos had no choice but to sit on the turf of the Al-Ahli Stadium.

He said, “I can’t get it out of my head, not even now. It was the first day in my life that I thought about quitting soccer. For ten days after I returned home, I couldn’t leave my house. I lost my soul.”

He continued.

 

“I still see it in my dreams. Kazu (Tomoyoshi Miura, 56, UD Oliveirense, Portugal) and I pass the ball together, and Kazu scores the final goal, completely overcoming the opponent. Scenes like that.” 

Thirty years ago, the Japanese national team was in Doha, Qatar. Japan was leading 2-1 in the final match of the Asian qualifying round against Iraq, a match that would decide Japan’s long-awaited first appearance in the World Cup. Just 17 seconds into added time, Japan took a 2-1 lead. Iraq chose to take a short corner from a corner kick on the right side of the field, and Kazu was dodged and the cross ball went over the head of Hajime Moriyasu (55, current coach of Japan). Opposing forward Omral Salman (57) headed it in.

If he had been able to hold on for those 17 seconds, Ramos would have been on the pitch at the 1994 World Cup in the U.S. 

“No, I had no intention of going to the U.S.,” Ramos said. “I had decided that the last time I would play for the national team would be in the final qualifying round. I was 36 years old at the time, and my Achilles tendon was hurting. I thought I would leave it to the younger players who would lead the next generation. For example, when Toshifumi Tonami (62), the left back for the national team in Doha, got injured, there was no one left to replace him. （I thought it would be good if Eisuke Nakanishi (50) of Ichihara (who can play left and right back) and Yutaka Akita (53), a center back from Kashima, could join the national team and gain experience.”

 

Ramos asserted, “I have never lived my life only for myself. The starting point of my life is my family.” He was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the fourth of five children. His father, a tax accountant, died suddenly when Ramos was 12 years old. The family’s finances quickly became difficult. Maria Edina Ramos, who died in 2007 at the age of 82, raised him as a single mother.

“I started working part-time when I was 7. Car washing, shoeshine. I even saved my allowance to buy a soccer ball. From then on, I wanted to become a pro at the soccer game I loved so much and make life easier for my family.”

“I want to build a house for my mother.”

In high school, he spent his time playing soccer and working part-time to become a professional, and kept applying to professional clubs, but was rejected because of his “thinness”. He then joined a club in Sao Paulo, but was approached by George Yonashiro, 72, a second-generation Japanese-Brazilian from the Yomiuri Club of the Japan Soccer League (“JSL”), about a professional contract, so he quit his Sao Paulo club and came to Japan at age 19.

“I didn’t even know where Japan was,” he said. “But I wanted to earn money in Japan and build a house for my mother.”

 

Although he came to Japan from the kingdom of soccer, Ramos never looked down on Japan, a country where soccer was not well developed. He played against Kunishige Kamamoto, 79, the ace of the Japanese national team that won the bronze medal at the Mexico Olympics in 1968, at the JSL, and was captivated by his play, watching videos of him many times.

In the JSL, which at the time was dominated by teams with a strong corporate flavor, the Yomiuri Club had a strong professional orientation and was subject to envy and opposition.’ In November 1984, a brawl broke out against Furukawa Electric. The other players were suspended for two games, but Ramos was suspended for nearly four months. Ramos was not convinced, but he gritted his teeth, saying, “If I give up on Japan and go home, it will be difficult for other Brazilian players to come to Japan.”

In 1989, his 13th year in Japan, he became a naturalized Japanese citizen and was selected for the Japan national team in 1990. Together with Kazu, who returned from Brazil that year, he played a leading role in the J-League and Japan’s national team, which was inaugurated in 1993. The Doha game against Iraq was a tragedy that occurred five months after the unprecedented J-League fever.

Ramos never spoke positively about the Doha tragedy. However, about four years ago, in 2019, when he was the coach of the Japanese national beach soccer team, he had a moment of reprieve when talking with the foreign media.

“The Portuguese and Spanish reporters were slurring the names of the Japanese national team players at Doha. ‘I remember more the players who fought with their souls on the pitch. You are the ones who should have been going to the World Cup for the first time.” I was happy.”

 

He retired in 1999. In 2007, he promoted his old club Verdy to J1 as manager. Four years later, he lost his wife, Hatsune, to cancer, and in 2015 he remarried Toshiko, but this time in 2016 he himself suffered a stroke. He had to face many trials and tribulations after leaving the pitch, but with Toshiko’s devoted nursing care, he made a remarkable recovery.

He said, “I have had good times and hard times, but I have been happy. I think God has been watching over me since I was born.”

Moriyasu, who wept with Ramos in Doha, is now the national coach of Japan. Japan defeated Germany and Spain at last year’s World Cup in Qatar.

“Moriyasu and the Japan Football Association have been working for 30 years since Doha to make Hinomaru stronger. That’s why the player lineup has become thicker. I want Japan to win the next World Cup! Not that we have a chance, but that we can. Because we can!”

In September, Moriyasu’s Japan team played Germany again in hostile territory and won a convincing 4-1 victory, the back-to-back wins following the World Cup that led to the dismissal of the German coach. After overcoming the “Doha tragedy,” Japan’s national team has risen to a level where it can now compete with the best in Europe. No one laughs at Ramos’ declaration of victory anymore.

From the November 24, 2023 issue of FRIDAY