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

Shinji Kagawa (34, C Osaka), Atsuto Uchida (35, JFA role model coach), and Yuto Nagatomo (37, FC Tokyo) made the move to Europe immediately after Honda’s success in the European CL. Uchida and Nagatomo were already regulars at national side back (SB), but Kagawa was a young 21-year-old from Cerezo Osaka in J2. Although he had represented the national team before, he was not selected for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, so it was surprising that he would get a chance to play for Borussia Dortmund, a prestigious German club.

By this time, European clubs had shifted their targets from the top players of the Japanese national team to young players of the U-20 and U-23 Olympic generations. They would acquire cheap teenage players on loan, and if they were successful, they would buy the rights to them and sell them to other clubs at a high price to make money. If the player is not useful, he can be returned to the J club from which he was rented and there is no risk. The young Kagawa, who had participated in the 2007 U-20 World Cup (Canada) and the 2008 Beijing Olympics and was scoring a lot of goals for J2, was an ideal candidate.

In addition, at the time, Dortmund was in the midst of a restructuring process after starting over from a business collapse in the mid-1900s. They could not pay a hefty transfer fee to acquire a big name. Therefore, they scouted for promising players such as Ilkay Gundogan (33), Robert Lewandowski (35, both Barcelona), Mario Goetze (31, Frankfurt), and others under the age of 23 one after another. The famous coach, Jurgen Klopp (56, now at Liverpool), brought out the best of their potentials and helped them to win the Bundesliga in the ’10-’11 and ’11-’12 seasons. The team won back-to-back Bundesliga titles in the ’10-’11 and ’11-’12 seasons. In the summer of 2012, Kagawa won a place at Manchester United, one of the most prestigious clubs in the English Premier League.

Kagawa is a rare example of a player who started at a mid-table German club, worked his way up with the club, and made it all the way to Man United,” said one of Kagawa’s agents.

This includes Ryo Miyaichi (31, Yokohama), who joined Arsenal shortly before Kagawa and was loaned out to Feyenoord, Bolton, and Wigan, and Shinji Okazaki (37, Sint-Troiden), who joined Leicester in the summer of 2003 and helped them win the Premier League that same season, The number of Japanese attackers playing in the Premier League steadily increased during the decade. This trend can be seen as having led to Takumi Minamino (28, Monaco) joining Liverpool in January 2008 and Kaoru Mitoma (26, Brighton) playing a major role in the team’s success.

On the other hand, the arrival of Maya Yoshida (35, LA Galaxy) from VVV Venlo to Southampton in the summer of ’12 was also a very impactful event.