Zico was instrumental in Japan’s development as a soccer-playing nation and has warned that players are moving to Europe too young, citing his native Brazil as a cautionary tale.
The midfield legend ended his playing career in Japan after helping to launch the professional J.League in 1993 and he also coached the country’s national team from 2002 to 2006.
He maintains a connection to Japan as an adviser to Kashima Antlers, the club he helped build into the country’s most successful and where he has served as a player, coach and technical director for the past 30 years.
Photo: AFP
During that time, Zico has seen Japan grow from a soccer backwater to regular FIFA World Cup participants, with players thriving at some of Europe’s biggest clubs.
The 72-year-old says Japanese players looking beyond the J.League is a “positive” development — as long as they move at the right time.
He draws similarities with Brazil, where he says some players leave for Europe after only a handful of games in the domestic league.
“Brazilian players go to Europe too soon, losing their Brazilian roots. If a player isn’t resilient, they come back because they haven’t achieved their full potential there,” Zico told reporters in Kashima.
“They leave very early, they don’t play and that’s happened in Germany, it’s happened in Italy, it’s happened in many places,” he added.
“That’s what’s happening to many Japanese players — they go there too early, lack confidence and then they come back,” he added.
Zico said that the trend is still overwhelmingly beneficial for Japan.
He contrasts the situation to the early days of the J.League, when European clubs would sign Japanese players “for marketing reasons.”
Zico says the picture today is also different from his time as Japan coach, during which he won the 2004 Asian Cup and took the team to the 2006 World Cup.
“We had some players in Europe, but they would get half an hour, five minutes, 15 minutes in games — they weren’t starters like they are today, that’s the big difference,” he said. “So when they came back to play for the national team they didn’t bring the same playing rhythm that they have today.”
Zico was one of several international stars drafted in to help the launch of the J.League, which brought professional soccer to Japan for the first time.
The Brazilian, along with England’s Gary Lineker and Germany’s Pierre Littbarski, raised the new league’s profile and helped the sport take root in a country long obsessed with baseball.
High-profile signings are now rare in the J.League, with Spanish World Cup winner Andres Iniesta’s move to Vissel Kobe in 2018 a notable exception.
Zico believes it was “not a coincidence” that Kobe won two straight J.League titles after Iniesta left the club in 2023.
“It’s an investment. Having a player of Iniesta’s level at your club motivates everyone,” he said. “You learn because he’s a winner, it improves the performance of the other players and it motivates the supporters. Everything grows.”
Kashima are atop the J.League, even if the days when they could sign Brazilian World Cup winners like Jorginho and Leonardo are long gone.
Zico joined the club when they were in the semi-professional second division and they have since won the J.League a record eight times and the Asian Champions League once.
Zico visits Kashima regularly to interact with fans and sponsors, as well as working with the club’s youth section.
He said that the club is “like my son.”
“I watched it being born, grow and become what it is now,” he said. “We have been able to take my experience in professional football and put it into practice here. A son is like that — you educate him and watch him go through life.”
Nottingham Forest FC are to go into the Europa League play-off round after a 4-0 win over Ferencvaros TC on Thursday, while Celtic FC secured their place in the knockout phase with a victory over FC Utrecht. Aston Villa FC finished second in the league phase after recovering from two goals down to beat FC Red Bull Salzburg 3-2 with their spot in the last 16 already assured. Forest stood an outside chance of climbing into the top eight going into the final round of matches, but needed to beat Robbie Keane’s Ferencvaros and rely on other results going their way. Sean Dyche’s
HEATED RIVALRY: The pair had met 14 times previously, with Sabalenka winning eight of the encounters and entering the final as the favorite to take the title Elena Rybakina took revenge over world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka to win a nail-biting Australian Open final yesterday and clinch her second Grand Slam title. The big-serving Kazakh fifth seed held her nerve to pull through 6-4, 4-6, 6-4 at Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne in 2 hours, 18 minutes. It was payback after the Belarusian Sabalenka won the 2023 final between two of the hardest hitters in women’s tennis. The ice-cool Rybakina, 26, who was born in Moscow, adds her Melbourne triumph to her Wimbledon win in 2022. It was more disappointment in a major final for Sabalenka, who won the US Open
Denver superstar Nikola Jokic returned from a 16-game injury absence to post a 31-point, 12-rebound double-double on Friday and propel the Nuggets to a 122-109 NBA victory over the Los Angeles Clippers. Three-time NBA Most Valuable Player Jokic had not played since suffering a bone bruise in the left knee he hyperextended in a game against Miami on Dec. 29 last year. The Serbian big man did not miss a beat. He led all scorers, connecting on eight of 11 shots from the field, and also handed out five assists with three steals while playing just 24 minutes, 32 seconds as the
BATTERED AND BRUISED: Alcaraz suffered a cramp in the third set, but was allowed treatment despite Zverev’s protests, and continued on to win in five-and-a-half hours An ailing Carlos Alcaraz battled past Alexander Zverev yesterday in five epic sets to reach his first Australian Open final and move within a match of becoming the youngest man to complete a career Grand Slam. The world No. 1 outlasted the German third seed 6-4, 7-6 (7/5), 6-7 (3/7), 6-7 (4/7), 7-5 over a titanic 5 hours, 27 minutes in hot conditions to head to tomorrow’s title match. He only narrowly avoided crashing out after a huge fright at 4-4 in the third set when he pulled up in pain with what appeared to be cramp. He was allowed to have treatment
RSS