Unbeatable Mind

Having said that, it was not like I had many options to consider before making a decision at that time. VVV were the only club I could go to if I wanted to move to Europe. I had just three years of experience in the J.League as a professional with no particular achievements even at the domestic level. There was no way for such a player to attract much interest from clubs abroad. On top of that, only a handful of Japanese were playing in Europe at the time and it was still difficult for a younger generation, my generation of Japanese players, to go abroad, even if we were keen to try.

For me, the move only became realistic six months or so after Honda-san’s (Keisuke Honda) move to VVV. Other Japanese playing in Europe around that time were all from an older generation, such as Shunsuke Nakamura (then at Celtic) and Daisuke Matsui (then at Saint-Étienne). Under those circumstances, a young player like myself, the nobody of nobodies, had no right to complain about having no choice of foreign clubs to move to. I was just fortunate to share the same agent as Honda-san and was able to count on his strong connections with VVV.

It was the summer of 2008, the year of the Beijing Olympics. At the Shenyang Olympic Sports Center Stadium in China my agent was watching a men’s Group B game between Japan and the Netherlands in the stadium with Mr Hai Berden, the chairman of VVV.

I’d only just made the Japan national Under-23 squad for Beijing and was not involved in the first two group games. But my chance finally came in our third game against the Netherlands, with Japan’s elimination from the tournament already confirmed after two defeats.

We had nothing other than our pride to play for, but for the Netherlands a place in the knockout stage was still at stake. Therefore we faced a strong Dutch side and I was fortunate to have the chance to play against attacking talents such as Roy Makaay (then at Feyenoord) and Ryan Babel (then at Liverpool) while the chairman of VVV watched on from the stand. And it was right there that a conversation between Mr Berden and my agent took place – one that can be very simply summarised as follows:

Mr Berden: ‘That defender looks quite good.’

My agent: ‘He’s our player.’

Mr Berden: ‘Oh, well, we shall make an approach then.’

Since I already had a vision of furthering my career step by step overseas, I didn’t have any problem at all with making my first step abroad in the Netherlands. In fact, I welcomed the challenge, as it was the country I could imagine myself moving to and playing football in based on past experience at least. Just before I became a high-school student in Japan I’d briefly had a chance to visit the Netherlands with a Grampus youth team, and had watched league games there and played against some local youth sides.

Some people were strongly against my decision to leave Grampus for VVV, saying, ‘Why do you have to move to such a small club in the Netherlands?’ But to me it was never that I felt I ‘had to’ move there, and it wasn’t like I chose VVV instead of some bigger clubs in other countries.

Piksi, my manager at Grampus, was also against the move at that point in my career. ‘It’s too early for you,’ he told me, on more than one occasion. Every time we spoke about my possible transfer, he said, ‘It’s not too late if you move after at least one more year here,’ or, ‘You’d better have enough under your belt before you move abroad,’ as he tried to persuade me to stay.

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