As an ancient capital of Japan, Kyoto is a city with a lot of charm. But passionate professional sports seem at odds with this ancient city. As the oldest football team in Japan, the predecessor of kyoto purple light club was born as early as 1922, and the team joined the professional J-League as early as 1996. However, Kyoto's undead bird's performance in the professional league has always been like Adou, who can't stand up for a long time and has been committed to the secondary league for a long time.
However, in the just-concluded 2021 season, Kyoto Undead Bird was successfully promoted with a second place in the J2 League (24 wins, 12 draws and 6 defeats), which is the team's return to the top flight after a gap of 12 years. As for the most important factor in the promotion of the team, the coach Cao Gui, who has only coached the team for one year, has made a great contribution. How did the Japanese-Born Korean coach, who grew up in Kyoto, make this team look new?
Let's take a look at how Matsuura Noronori, the first "professional logistician" in the history of Japanese football, who worked with Cao Gui, evaluated his comrade-in-arms.
In Japanese football, Matsuura Norinori is famous. He was not a coach or an athlete, but a logistician. He was the first professional logistics worker in the history of Japanese football. Although the concept of "professional logistics" has become very common in football developed countries, it was not introduced to Japan until the 1990s, when Matsuura, who worked for the predecessor of Tokyo's greenery, Yomiuri Club, became the first professional logistics in the history of Japanese football. Over the next few decades, he worked on the greenery of Tokyo and nagoya whales, and in 2017 began working in Kyoto Undead Bird, where he collaborated with Mizuno to develop soccer equipment. It can be said that he is a very senior football practitioner.
Since Matsuura joined Kyoto, the team has been hovering in the middle of the J2 League, with the worst-performing 2018 season on the verge of relegation. The 2019 and 2020 seasons maintained 8th place in the league for two consecutive seasons. In 2021, the team hired Cao Guijue, who had a successful experience in Shonan Marine, to coach the team. Born and raised in Kyoto, Cho Kyoshi was admitted to the prestigious Waseda University and joined Hitachi Manufacturing (now Kashiwa Helios) after graduating from university, and has since played for Urawa and Kobe. After ending his playing career in 1997, he embarked on the path of coaching.
After Cao Guijue became the manager of Shonan Ocean in 2012, he gradually became less famous. Only because he has created an exclusive set of "Shonan style" for this small team - while steadily defending, keeping an eye on every mistake of the opponent and launching a quick attack tactic against it. Speed is a core part of its tactical thinking.
In the following 7 years, although Shonan traveled between J1 and J2, this team was injected with the soul of Cao Guijue and became a strong team in the J League. However, in 2019, Cao was investigated by the J League for the time of "power harassment" of players and staff together, and finally he chose to resign as manager and was banned for 1 year. Unable to coach a professional team, Cao Guijue chose to go to the Football Department of the University of Circulation Economics as an assistant coach in 2020. Only two months after the successful lifting of the ban in October of that year, he took up his post in Kyoto.
Matsuura and Cao worked together since 2021, but the two have known each other as early as 2016. In the final round of the J-League that season, Nagoya, who worked for Matsuura, played against Shonan, coached by Cao. Shonan had already been relegated at the time, but Nagoya still had a glimmer of life. According to common sense, it doesn't hurt for Shonan, who has no desires and no desires, to be a smooth person at this time, but Cao sent Shonan's strongest squad in that game, beating Nagoya 3-1 and sending this old team to the J2 league. Matsuura recalled that after the game, he cried at the entrance of the passage while preparing for the farewell event with the fans after the home game, but he did not expect Cao Gui to come over at this time and say "I'm sorry" to him. This small action made Matsuura remember it vividly, and he couldn't help but look at the coach differently.
The second time the two met again is already in 2021, when Cao Guijue has experienced a scandal storm. However, Matsuura believes that it is caused by Cao Guijue's failure to grasp the right balance because of his own personality factors. "Cao Guijue is very strict in the workplace, whether it is for himself or for others, so sometimes he blurts out some unpleasant words, but in private he is still a very good person to deal with." Matsuura said.
As for why he is so harsh on others, in Matsuura's view, it is because of Cao Guijue's pursuit and dedication to details. "I've never seen someone so obsessed with details since I worked with a professional team in 1993, and he cares a lot of the points you can't think of. His concern for the players can even reach very subtle points, and he is confident in the habits of every player under his command, and it is difficult for such a coach not to bring the team well. Cao Gui referee has a sentence that often said to the players before the game: "It is the players who play on the field, not me." In this week's game, we will show what we practice off the field, winning is your credit, the responsibility for losing is on me, don't have a burden! "Therefore, the arrival of Cao Guijue actually alleviated the pressure of the team's promotion for many years. Kyoto's players were released and instead performed better.
In the first five rounds of the 2021 season, Kyoto only had 2 wins, 1 draw and 2 losses, but since then the team has played a wave of 15 rounds of unbeaten climax. And most importantly, the team has not lost a single game in 42 league rounds, which shows the team's ability to correct errors. Matsuura believes that Cao Gui's approach, which can effectively alleviate the pressure on the team, allows the players to always be motivated for the next game and summarize the experience in time, rather than self-doubt for no reason. At the beginning of the season, Cao once said to the players: "To win the championship or upgrade, the most critical game is the last 5 rounds, before which you don't think too much." Sure enough, what ensured the team could be promoted was the 37th round of the 1-0 match against the Omiya Squirrels, and Kawasaki Satta's goal in stoppage time gave Kyoto hope of returning to the top flight after 12 years.
In the following 4 games, Kyoto drew 3 and lost 1, and there was a thrilling success in promotion. However, the only defeat in the last 4 rounds is what Cao Gui needs to summarize well. The match was a top-of-the-table battle, with the team losing 1-0 to Joy Iwata – the final J2 league title. "It's the only game in a season where I've felt baggage on the players. Coupled with some injuries in the team, it was ultimately unable to play at a real level, resulting in the last 3 rounds of the game also playing scared. Matsuura explained.
The 2022 season is a huge test for Kyoto, which has not appeared on the top league stage for a long time, Kyoto has made reinforcements in many positions during the interval, but the paper strength of this team in the J League can only be said to be lower than the middle, how to alleviate the psychological pressure of the players in the team to compete in the top league, then it depends on what Coach Cao has to say.
Text/Supine Braces - Yangyuan Zhang