The brilliant present of Japanese football includes the uninterrupted participation of the “samurais” in the last seven editions of the FIFA World Cup; the J1 League, the first division league, which has a record number of 20 teams, and the presence of the best soccer players in the most prominent leagues in Europe and America, which includes the hiring of two outstanding soccer players by River Plate and Boca Juniors, the largest clubs in Argentine football, among other notable milestones in current Japanese football.
a little history
The first major FIFA event organized by Japan was the 1979 World Youth Championship, which established Argentina as world champion, Diego Maradona as the best player and Ramón Díaz as the tournament’s top scorer. In that second edition of the youth world championship, only 16 teams participated in the 32 matches distributed in 4 venues: Tokyo (Olympic Stadium with capacity for 57 thousand spectators), Kobe (40,150), Omiya (12,500) and Yokohama (Mitsuzawa Stadium, 8,000).
The local team played three games: they lost with Spain 1-0, and tied with Algeria 0-0 and with Mexico 1-1, which is why they were eliminated in the first phase. A total of 454,500 people attended the tournament, with an average of 14,203 per game. While the Japan matches had a much higher average of 33,300 spectators per match.
Just one year later, Japan was once again in the spotlight of world football thanks to the automotive company Toyota, in what marked the second major milestone for the development of Japanese football. Seeing the deterioration of the Intercontinental Cup, since the champion teams of Europe and America could not agree on the holding of the prestigious final, the automobile corporation took the competition under its protection and created contractual obligations so that the Intercontinental Cup It will be played in Tokyo once a year, with all champion clubs forced to participate or face legal consequences. This modern format gave a new look to the competition and awarded an additional trophy to the winner, the Toyota Cup.
To protect against the possibility of European withdrawals, Toyota, UEFA and all European Cup participants signed annual contracts requiring the eventual winners of the European Cup, the current Champions League, to participate in the Intercontinental Cup, as Otherwise they would face an international lawsuit from UEFA and Toyota.
The first Toyota Cup was held in 1980, under the logistical organization of the Japan Football Association but always under the official command of UEFA and Conmebol, with the endorsement of FIFA. The 1980s saw a clear dominance of South American teams, which achieved seven titles against three of the European teams. These numbers would be reversed in the 90s and in the 21st century Boca Juniors was the only South American team to establish itself in Japan, in 2000 and 2003. The 2004 Intercontinental Cup turned out to be the last, since the competition was merged with the Copa FIFA Club World Cup. Tokyo, from 1980 to 2001, and Yokohamafrom 2002 to 2004, were the venues for the Toyota Cup.
The third major event organized by Japan, in this case together with South Korea, was the 2002 FIFA World Cup, the seventeenth edition of the Soccer World Cup. This tournament was the first in history held by two countries, the first to be held outside Europe and America, the first World Cup to be held in the 21st century, the first of the third millennium and the first to be held in Asia.
The Japanese team managed to qualify for the first time to the round of 16 (it would repeat in the 2010, 2018 and 2022 editions) after tying with Belgium 2-2, beating Russia 1-0, Tunisia 2-0 and staying with the group H. In the round of 16 they lost to Turkey 1-0 at the Miyagi Stadium, before 45,600 spectators. 52,000 people – on average – watched each presentation of the samurai team, in a clear demonstration that football, in addition to being popular, was already a business in continuous growth.
What’s coming
The economic and sporting growth of Japanese football was based on the Japanese Federation’s strategy of organizing major sporting events and thus attracting public attention. It achieved a virtuous circle in which more and more children and young people approached the practice of football, both in social practice and as a federated sport. The last step, and the most desired, was to achieve a team that could compete in high performance, at the highest level. Since this tournament was created, the level of Japanese football has improved and its selection has been present in all editions of the Soccer World Cup since 1998.
The J1 League 2024also known as «2024 Meiji Yasuda J1 League»thanks to the sponsorship of this life insurance company, is the fifty-ninth season of the highest category of football in Japanand the thirty-second season of the J1 Leaguethe highest Japanese division since its establishment in 1993. The championship remained as a single division until 1999, with the creation of a second division (J2 League) and a promotion and relegation system.
The J1 League is also sponsored by the American company MasterCard and the Japanese companies Canon, Aidem, Route Inn, AEON, Konami, Nintendo, Ichigo Real Estate and NTT Docomo. In fiscal year 2023, J1 League clubs obtained a total of approximately 86.39 billion yen in revenue, a figure higher than those obtained in 2022 (80.44 million), 2021 (83.18 million). 2020 (69.04 million) but still far from the 89.12 million yen obtained in 2019, before the Coronavirus pandemic, the figure to exceed. Revenue in 2014 had been only 59.3 million yen, so in five years (2014-2019) the figure increased by almost 30 billion yen,
Currently the J1 League is considered one of the three best Asian leagues, according to the IFFHS (International Federation of Football History and Statistics). The South Korean league is ranked 31st, Saudi Arabia’s Saudi Pro League is ranked 33rd and Japan’s is ranked 39th. One team from each of these leagues will be present in the 2025 Club World Cup that FIFA will organize in the United States: Arab Al Hilal, champion of the Asian Champions League in 2021; the Japanese Urawa Red Diamonds (2022), the Al Ain of the United Arab Emirates (2023-2024) and the Korean Ulsan Hyundai, which qualified by ranking.
Ariel García is a journalist and teacher: director and integral TV producer; institutional communication advisor. He holds the chair of Television Communication at the Higher School of Sports Journalism of Mendoza. He has worked in private media – TV and radio – since 1992 (América TV, Supercanal and Canal 7 Mendoza, Radio Aurora Argentina among others) and has worked in public institutions (UNCUYO, UTN Faculty Regional Mendoza and Government of Mendoza). He was a contributor to Diario Sport de Barcelona.
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