Home-grown football could be Japan's path to World Cup glory

Last week, Gamba Osaka made headlines with their decision to fire coach Jose Serrao just three weeks into a new season.

While some commentators have tried to qualify the situation by pointing out that Gamba actually lost five matches in those three weeks (including two ACL contests), it does not change the fact that this sets a new record for sudden coaching departures.

Even Holger Osieck’s departure three weeks into the 2008 season was prefaced by a disappointing run at the end of 2007, which saw Urawa Reds piss away the league title by losing their final four matches, including the final game of the year at home against last-placed Yohokaha FC.

Serrao had no such history, and one has to ask why Gamba hired him in the first place if they were unwilling to keep him around for at least a month or two.

Clearly, it is not going to be easy to rebuild a team that was run by the same coach for a decade. Masanobu Matsunami, who now has to try to pick up the pieces at Gamba, played under Nishino himself, so he will probably be able to reorganise the club around a Nishino-like philosophy. But given the lack of personnel, the age of many veterans, and the fact that Gamba has ACL commitments to deal with, he will be lucky to even manage a midtable finish.

Nonetheless, Matsunami deserves patience from the front office. Though he may lack experience in the coaching ranks, Matsunami is part of a new generation of J.League coaches that is steadily assuming control of Japan’s coaching ranks and its strategic direction.

These individuals all received their early exposure to football philosophy in the J.League itself, and though they surely picked up hints from other coaches and other countries along the way, the approach most of them take is truly Japanese.

Japan is starting to develop a unique style of its own, which may owe a great deal to the Brazilian football (and largely Brazilian coaching) that was consciously imitated in the early years of the J.League, but which has moved off in a direction all its own.

In the past, most J.League coaches were either foreigners or Japanese individuals who played the sport when younger, but whose real focus was always on coaching. Regardless of where they derived their coaching philosophies and influences, none of these individuals had cultivated their tactical ideas and experiences in the new melting pot of Japanese football.

But today, teams are being taken over by former J.League players whose most important experiences and lessons in football tactics, the run of play, the optimal positioning of players and so forth, were cultivated right here in the J.League.

A few of these coaches have already been around for a while – guys like the Hashiratani brothers, Hisashi Kurosaki in Niigata, and Yasutoshi Miura in Kitakyushu. But more are entering the ranks with each passing season.

In fact, the entire Kashima Antlers 1996 back line is now in the coaching ranks: Naoki Soma is head coach of Frontale, Ryosuke Okuno manages Montedio Yamagata, Jorginho is coaching the Antlers this year, and the fourth – Yutaka Akita – was briefly head coach at Sanga (he now is an assistant coach at Verdy).

In addition, Takuya Takagi has done wonders in his first head coaching role, in Kumamoto; Hitoshi Morishita took over this season at Jubilo; Hajime Moriyasu was appointed head coach at Sanfrecce this year; and Motohiro Yamaguchi took over at Yokohama FC two weeks ago, when Yasuyuki Kishino was fired.

These individuals, and many others who are now in assistant coaching roles, will be at the forefront of Japanese football’s evolution over the next few decades, and this is likely to help Japan’s unique style of football develop further.

So keep your eye on the teams mentioned above, as the season progresses. You are witnessing the birth of a new footballing philosophy that will define the country for years to come, and may eventually take Japan to World Cup glory.