Japan have become a major national team. The last two World Cups ending at the round of 16, and still something has shifted underneath, not always easy to pin down, more aggressive now, more modern in the way it tries to play, players of quality spread across the pitch and even outside the usual reference points. How Japan, which only reached its first World Cup in 1998, has become a football power sits in a 58-page manual. A document that places strong emphasis on player development, on and off the pitch. Project DNA. A long-term programme launched by the Federation, with an objective set very far ahead, 2092, a World Cup as horizon more than destination.
Inside those pages a pathway for the whole system, step by step. Built on sporting culture, education, and the idea of the player as something that comes before the athlete. Three pillars. Player development, coach education, grassroots structure. The same identity across all national teams, from youth levels to the senior side, and alongside that individual development plans that don’t always follow a single pattern. Coaches evaluated less on results than on how players are formed, or expected to be formed. Continuity sits in the background. Hajime Moriyasu has been national team coach for eight years now. No interruption in direction, though the sense of stability is probably stronger from the outside than it is inside.
Japan have not missed a World Cup in the last eight editions. In Qatar, four years ago, first place in the group ahead of Spain and Germany, a result that later became part of the narrative, more than it was at the time. The manual goes further, almost into regulation. Roles defined, physical parameters, distances, sprints, workloads, diet. It reaches into training life in a way that is very precise and then leaves it there without insisting too much on interpretation. Japan’s Way is already visible in the numbers. More than 100 Japanese players registered with European clubs this season, and that figure circulates almost independently now. The growth has led the Federation to open a base in Europe, closer to the players, closer to what their week actually looks like.
In the main European leagues the names recur. Suzuki at Parma, Ito at Bayern, Sugawara at Southampton, Itakura, Tomiyasu at Ajax, Tanaka at Leeds, Kamada at Crystal Palace, Kubo at Real Sociedad, Doan at Eintracht, Sano at Freiburg, Maeda at Celtic, and others just behind them. No single figure emerging above the rest, not yet, or maybe not in the way European narratives usually expect. The level across the board is rising. Not a small thing. Not something to take for granted.