How Japanese Athletes Are Becoming Global and World Class

Osaka – Sunday, July 11, 2010

Soon after Japan lost the game with Paraguay in the 2010 World Cup in the first final tournament session playing extra time and then lost in penalty kicks, some players who had won attention including Keisuke Honda and Yuto Nagatomo are now being approached by western professional soccer teams and negotiation of relocation started. In fact, Eiji Kawashima, the goal keeper of the Japan soccer team for the 2010 World Cup, already moved to a Belgium team on July 6, and today on July 11 Keisuke Honda just left Japan from Narita International Airport to relocate in Russia. This seems to be another sign of Japanese athletes getting more and more global.

1. How were most sports and athletes in Japan in 20th century?

Sports and athletes in Japan used to be rather domestic in general in 20th century.

Although it may be a little unexpected, perhaps the sport that had already been international sport in Japan is sumo wrestling, which is the national sport of Japan. There have been non-Japanese sumo wrestlers from in 1970s long ago who had come from Hawaii, Mongol and Eastern Europe countries. In fact, the current and recent Yokozuna wrestlers (the highest rank players, only 2 at maximum) have been non-Japanese.

Baseball is another sport that had some non-Japanese players. Most of them were ex-major league players, who were invited to join a Japanese professional baseball team. And of course, world-class non-Japanese athletes do play in major golf tournaments held in Japan.

But most sports in Japan have been domestic and homogeneous, and few Japanese athletes relocated to overseas. Japanese athletes who played games or tournaments abroad (excluding games such as Olympics and World Championships) were extremely limited; they were mostly professional athletes of golf and tennis.

2. How did Japanese athletes start to go global?

The author would like to focus on the case of baseball and soccer in briefly explaining how Japanese athletes started to go global because she feels their case is easy to understand how Japanese athletes started to go global.

1) Baseball

Hideo Nomo, a pitcher, was the first Japanese to relocate to the U.S. to join a major league team in 1995, which was a great risk for his baseball life/career. Until then it was believed that Japanese baseball players would not succeed in major league due to lack of skills compared to major league players although baseball had been one of the most popular sport in Japan, and many people paid much attention to how he gets on.

It must have been tough to relocate in another country as a pioneer but Hideo proved that a Japanese baseball player can be successful in the major league. And then other Japanese baseball players started to relocate to the U.S. to join a major league team, some famous players including Ichiro, Hideki Matsui, Daisuke Matsuoka, Hideki Okajima and Tsuyoshi Shinjo (who have come back to Japan now), of different position followed Nomo to relocate to the U.S. to play in a major league team.

Now, relocating to the U.S. to join a major league team has become one of a popular option for successful Japanese baseball players.

2) Soccer

Soccer was mostly of an amateur sport that was not so popular in Japan. But with the start of the J (Japan) League in 1993 meaning making soccer a professional sport. This marked the start of evolution of Japan soccer evolution; i.e. how the skills of Japanese soccer players improved, how soccer became popular, and how the sport and players became global.

With the J League, soccer players of the league would be blessed with necessary environment to concentrate on soccer to become a top level player. With tournaments of the league, they would have more opportunities than before to play soccer, leading to enhancement in the overall level of the league. Their games would go on the air and information on the league would be posted on media. This attracted people’s attention, meaning more boys to start playing soccer dreaming of becoming a professional player, and enhancement in the environment and infrastructure/systems of developing young soccer players. This is how Japan managed to join the World Cup games in 1998.

Playing in the World Cup games has significant meaning in the globalization of the sport and athletes. Although the level/skills of Japanese soccer players in general still may not be up to the world class and the team result of the World Cup game was not necessarily good, some European soccer teams found a few competent players such as Hidetoshi Nakata and Shunsuke Nakamura and invited to join their team. Without playing in the World Cup games, such athletes probably did not have a chance to relocate to Europe to be a member of one of the top class team.

Similarly to baseball, now, relocating abroad to join and play in a world class team is a well accepted option for Japanese successful soccer players. In fact, Eiji Kawashima, who relocated to Belgium on July 6, had set his goal as joining a European team since he was quite young and had been preparing for it.

Eiji not only practiced much soccer, he aggressively acquired 4 European languages. Hidetoshi Nakata supported him in acquiring Italian and understanding “European soccer”. Eiji decided to acquire European languages because he knew it would be inevitable to be a successful goal keeper of a European team, who would need to communication with the team members much during the game in the native language. His language proficiency was prominent in the press conference that was held immediately after he arrived in Belgium.

3. What are the requirements for athletes to truly become world class athletes?

It is highly likely that in the near future, soft skills such as language and intercultural communication skills as well as hard skills of the sport the athletes specialize in determine how the athletes could truly become global and world class athletes. Many of the Japanese athletes of golf and tennis who often play abroad speak English very well already. This is mostly for their survival similarly to Mr. Kawashima; for golf for instance, English proficiency is one of the requirements to be able to play in tournaments held in the U.S. In fact, successful non-Japanese sumo wrestlers have acquired Japanese extremely well and have adapted to Japanese society, manners and culture, and tradition of sumo wrestling.

There is a lesson from how athletes become truly successful, world class athletes. It is that the determinants of becoming truly globalized and world class athlete are the requirements for business person to be successful in the global business world.