The Path to the Strongest Generation: Part 2] Makoto Hasebe and Keisuke Honda Paved the Way for “Transferring Abroad Even if Not a Mainstay of the Japanese National Team

Following on from the previous article, “The Genius Shinji Ono’s Failure to Make the Step Abroad,” we look back at the challenges faced by the men who paved the way for Japanese players to move overseas.

In the late 2000s, when the golden generation, led by Shinji Ono (44, Sapporo), paved the way for Japanese players to move overseas, a different transfer route began to emerge. The catalyst for change came in January 2008, when Makoto Hasebe (39, Frankfurt) and Keisuke Honda (37) took up the challenge of playing in Europe.

Hasebe went from Urawa Reds to Wolfsburg in the German Bundesliga, and Honda went from Nagoya Grampus to VVV Venlo in the Netherlands, but neither was a major player in the national team at the time.

Hasebe won his first cap for Japan against the United States in San Francisco in February 2006 during the Zico Japan era, but he was rarely called up to the national team during the Osim Japan era, when he took over. Honda was also called up to the team during the Osim Japan era, but did not play. His first cap came against Bahrain (Saitama) in June 2008, after Takeshi Okada (67) took over as coach for the second time.

In other words, they broke through the preconceived notion that “players who have made their mark in the national team are the ones who go overseas.

Hasebe established himself as a driving force behind the German Bundesliga championship in his second season. He went on to play for Nuremberg and Frankfurt, where he is still active at the age of 40. It is a well-known fact that he has become an exemplary top player, respected by everyone in the German soccer world.

Although relegated to the second division six months after moving to the Netherlands, Honda made a major breakthrough in the 2008-09 season, becoming a driving force behind the club’s return to the first division and winning the Player of the Year (MVP) award as voted by the coaches and captains of each team in the second division. MVP award, voted on by the coaches and captains of the teams in the second division. He was also awarded the MVP award, which was voted by the coaches and captains of the second division teams. In the middle of the following season, in January 2010, he moved to CSKA Moscow in the Russian Premier League. In January 2010, he moved to CSKA Moscow in the Russian Premier League, where he participated in the UEFA Champions League (European CL) and scored a direct FK in the second leg of the first round match against Sevilla, helping the team to the top eight. In 2002, he joined AC Milan, where he achieved the feat of wearing the number 10 jersey.

He showed that even if he did not play a central role in the national team, Japanese players have the ability to play at a high level, a fact that had a great impact on him in the following years.