TOKYO – Japan’s national high school football tournament is thriving after more than 100 years, attracting huge crowds, millions watching on TV and breeding future stars, despite professional clubs trying to lure away young talent.
The annual tournament kicked off on Saturday and is still regarded as the pinnacle of amateur football with young players dreaming of playing in the final in front of tens of thousands at the National Stadium in Tokyo.
Matches are a massive occasion for the whole school as student cheering squads wave flags, bang drums and roar on their teams in a spectacle of noise and colour.
“All the teams are at a similar level of technical ability so it’s about who wants to win the most,” 18-year-old Junpei Fukuda, the leader of Ryutsukeizai University Kashiwa High School’s cheering squad, told AFP.
“We want our voices to be the loudest.”
Unlike in Europe, where young players are snapped up by professional club academies, high school football in Japan still attracts elite talent.
Many go on to the professional game and play for their country with current Japan stars such as Daizen Maeda and Reo Hatate of Celtic and Crystal Palace’s Daichi Kamada all having played high school football.
The landscape has begun to change in recent years, with more top young players turning their backs on the high school game and joining the youth teams of top-flight J. League clubs instead.
All games are televised locally and the semi-finals and final are broadcast to a national audience, with millions tuning in.
Last season’s final in Tokyo was played in front of 55,000 fans, comfortably eclipsing most J. League attendances.
High school baseball and rugby tournaments are also popular and football journalist Masashi Tsuchiya said it was because school sports strike a chord in Japan.
“I’m from Gunma Prefecture and I always support the Gunma team, even if it isn’t my old high school’s team,” he said.
“It’s a tournament that places importance on local pride and old school ties.”
Not all players who appear at the tournament have ambitions to play at the top level.
Some play on at university only, while others give up the sport after graduating from high school.
Ryutsukeizai Kashiwa manager Masahiro Enomoto said the tournament marks a transition after three years together as a team.
“It’s where kids, who have worked really hard for something, become adults,” he said.
– Floods of tears –
TV broadcasts of games go beyond events on the pitch, delving into the players’ back stories, playing up emotional bonds and featuring scenes of beaten teams in floods of tears.
“Japanese people love that kind of drama more than they think about the quality of the football,” said Enomoto, even though the standard remains undoubtedly high.
School sides still hold their own against J. League youth teams, who are increasingly regarded as a better route to the professional game.
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