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Although soccer has been gaining tremendous popularity in Japan over the past decade, and a great many star players from other countries have appeared in J.League teams over the years, not many Japanese players have made the jump to foreign leagues. Prior to 2000, young players were often farmed out to the taxi squads of professional teams in South America and Europe, as a way of giving them some experience before they returned to fight for a starting spot in a J.League lineup. However, only a handful actually played for the "main squad" of a professional team outside Japan. The pioneer in Europe was Yasuhiko Okudera, who played 235 matches and scored 25 goals in the Bundesliga between 1977 and 1985. Other players who managed to make a few appearances in Europe or South America in the 1980s included Kazuo Ozaki, with Arminia Bielefeld, Yatsuhiro Kazama with Bayer Leverkuesen, and Musashi Mizushima, for Brazil's FC Portugese.

However, around the turn of the century the situation changed suddenly, as a number of players made the jump to overseas clubs. Following a succesful advance to the World Cup in 1998, interest in Japanese football soared in Europe, giving more players a chance to make the jump overseas. In addition to Hidetoshi Nakata, who gained a higher profile than any Japanese player before him, other players like Kazu Miura, Nobuhiro Takeda, Hiroshi Nanami, Toshiya Fujita and Shoji Jo made the move to overseas clubs with varying degrees of success (or perhaps it would be more accurate to say "varying degrees of failure").

It wasnt until after the 2002 World Cup, In Korea and Japan, that interest received another boost. This time the players who took their chances with overseas clubs were able to secure more playing time, and a few even established themselves as core members of their teams. Shinji Ono and Takayuki Suzuki both earned regular starting spots in the Low Countries, Junichi Inamoto cut a lower profile in England but managed to establish himself as a dependable squad player in several European leagues, and Naohiro Takahara saw extensive playing time in Germany, first for Hamburg and then for Frankfurt.

However, as this second wave began to recede, two other players -- Shunsuke Nakamura and Daisuke Matsui -- made the move to Europe in a less flashy manner which would prove to be more profitable to their careers, in the longer term. Nakamura moved to the tiny Sicilian club Reggina, and Matsui to France Division 2 strugglers Le Mans. In both cases, the players established themselves as key contributors who raised the club to a level higher than what it might have achieved without their contributions. Nakamura used the three years in Italy as a launching pad to even greater success at Scottish giants Celtic, again opting to be a "big fish in a small pond", rather than trying to fight for playing time on one of Europe's top clubs. Matsui, meanwhile, was a key factor in Le Mans' climb into the Ligue 1, and increasing competitiveness with each passing year.

Following the successes and failures of various players over the past two decades, the current wave of players moving from Japan to Europe are opting for a lower profile club -- one where they can demonstrate their capabilities every week, while learning the language and making the adjustment to a different culture. Whereas it used to be only Japan's top playes, trying to find a spot at one of England, Italy or Spain's best-known clubs, now it is mainly younger players who are often viewed as second-tier in skill (though top-notch in ambition), and the teams they are moving to tend to be small clubs, either in a smaller country or in a second division of one of the football powers. Koki Mizuno is following Nakamura to Celtic, teenagers Sho Ito and Takayuki Morimoto have moved to small clubs in France and Italy, Makoto Hasebe and Naoya Kikuchi are moving to second-tier clubs in Germany, and there are a number of players who struggled to make it in the J.League now playing regularly for minor clubs in countries such as Portugal and Denmark.

This section of The Rising Sun News is devoted to the Japanese players who ply their trade in other countries, as well as historical information about Japanese players who have appeared on overseas teams in the past.

For information on your favourite overseas-based Japanese player, as well as the team that he plays for, click on one of the pictures below.

Junichi Inamoto Eintracht Frankfurt	Shunsuke Nakamura Celtic	Koki Mizuno Celtic	Tsuneyasu Miyamoto Red Bull Salzburg
Makoto Hasebe VfL Wolfsburg	Takayuki Morimoto Catania	Koji Nakata FC Basel 1893	Masashi Oguro Torino
Shinji Ono Bochum	Daisuke Matsui Le Mans	Naoya Kikuchi Karl Zeiss Jena	Keisuke Honda VVV Venlo
Kenji Fukuda Castellon	Issei Nakajima-Farran Nordskjelland	Paris Nakajima-Farran Naestved Boldklub	Suguru Hashimoto Vejle Boldklub
	Sho Ito Grenoble Foot	Takashi Hirano Vancouver Whitecaps

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