In the early morning of March 30, Beijing time, in the final of the Dubai Cup Invitational Tournament, the Japanese U21 men's football team successfully won the championship with a goal from striker Hosoya Masamune 1-0 against Saudi U23. The team, known as the "Paris Generation" in Japan, won the first international event after its formation, showing a good level of competition. It is worth mentioning that due to the nature of the Dubai Cup, coach Oyan has just adjusted the starters for 3 consecutive games. The change in the position of the goalkeeper is the most noteworthy, and the goalkeepers who started the three games are Suzuki Caiyan, Reiyang Kokubo Bryan and Masashi Sasaki. These three players are also the three most outstanding players in Japan in the current U21 age group.
In recent years, many teams in Japan's domestic leagues have chosen foreign goalkeepers, which also reflects the country's insufficient personnel reserves in the goalkeeper position. Now, there are 3 young door gods with great potential, can we change the old problem of the "Blue Samurai" goalkeeper's weakness?
Suzuki (Zion Suzuki, 20 years old, Urawa Red Diamond)
Shusaku Nishikawa has been standing in front of Urawa's gate for many years, and the veteran team, which is currently in the process of rebuilding, needs a new goalkeeper. Born in the United States and raised in Saitama, Suzuki Ishime is undoubtedly Nishikawa's number one successor.
Suzuki's father is Ghanaian and her mother is Japanese. His name, "Caiyan," comes from the Biblical allusion to Zion. From kindergarten onwards, Suzuki began to be exposed to football, and after entering elementary school, he joined urawa's youth training camp. Suzuki's biggest feature is the flexibility of his body, and he was invited to join the judo department during his junior high school years. To this day, Suzuki still insists on training in physical strength and flexibility, which is enough to maintain his explosive strength on the field, and will not be clumsy because of the muscle mass and clumsiness of the body. He is full of strength when driving bigfoots, and he is a weapon for the team to launch a quick attack.
Suzuki was first known to Japanese football in 2017. At the age of 15, he was cross-selected to join the U17 squad of Japan's U17 team for the U17 World Cup. The main goalkeeper of the Japanese team in that tournament will be Akio Tani, who is already famous in the J League and participated in the Olympic men's football competition last year. In the years since, Suzuki has been selected for the youth team at all levels. For example, in the summer of 2019, he participated in the World Youth Championship with the Japanese U20 team, and participated in the U17 World Cup for the second time as a main player in the autumn of that year. Last summer, Suzuki was selected for the Japanese Olympic team at the youngest age of 18 in history to compete in the men's soccer team at the Olympic Games. Now, he has the opportunity to compete in the men's soccer tournament at the Paris Olympics for the second time as a player of the right age.
Suzuki made his J-League debut last season, starting in the 13th round against Sendai as a starter for Shusaku Nishikawa to help the team win 2-0. Counting this game, he started six consecutive starts last season, urawa won 3, drew 2 and lost 1, keeping a clean sheet in 4 of those games. In addition, in addition to playing in the league last season, Suzuki has been Urawa's main goalkeeper in the League Cup, reaching the top four with the team.
To speak of shortcomings, Suzuki, like many young people, occasionally gets his opponent to take advantage of the opportunity because of the pass mistakes caused by his showmanship in the backcourt, and these details need to be compensated by the accumulation of experience in the game.
Leo Brian Kokubo (21, Benfica B)
As you can tell from the name, this is still a mixed-race goalkeeper. Kokubo's father, who was born and raised in Chiba Prefecture, was born and raised in Chiba Prefecture and later joined the U15 echelon of Kashiwa Helios. In 2018, Kokubo signed up for the first team of Kashiwa Helios, and although he did not get a chance to play for a year, he represented Kashiwa U17 in Qatar in February at the Algars Cup Invitational Tournament, playing against Benfica U17 in the semi-finals, and Kokubo's outstanding performance helped the team eliminate the opponent in the penalty shootout, and the final unfortunately lost to Paris. In the summer, he also represented Japan's U18 in the SBS Invitational tournament that summer. It was his excellent performance in the Algas Cup that made Kokubo attract benfica's attention. So, in January 2019, the player joined Benfica without any J-League appearances.
Edson and Oblak, who are currently active in European football, are both from Benfica, and the veteran giant has its own unique features in goalkeeper training. After Kokubo came to Portugal, he started playing in U19, and after 3 years of trial and error, Kokubo has been able to get a very stable playing time with Team B in Benfica U23. This season, he has made 3 and 6 appearances in the U23 league and 6 times in the Portuguese League. His debut on team B was against Porto B on January 11 this year, and Kokubo played all the game, but the team regrettably lost. Five days later, in the match against Madeira Nationals, Kokubo started two consecutive games and helped the team win 3-0 with a clean sheet.
In Kokubo's view, a European football power like Portugal has a considerable advantage in the number of games compared to Asian leagues such as Japan. As mentioned above, Kokubo has played for the U19, U23 and B teams successively, without worrying too much about not having a sufficient number of games to accumulate his own experience, and it is precisely because there are more opportunities to play, which promotes healthy competition within the team, so that players dare not slack off, and train more seriously on weekdays to prepare for the game.
Similar to Suzuki, Kokubo is also a goalkeeper known for his physical fitness, and his height of 193cm gives him an advantage in both arm span and leg length, but compared to Suzuki Caiyan, Kokubo's figure is still slightly thin, and it needs to be strengthened in the future.
Masato Sasaki (20 years old, Kashiwa Helios)
Sasaki was given the opportunity to play in the final against Saudi Arabia in Game 3, and unlike the above two, Sasaki is not a mixed-race goalkeeper, and at 185cm tall, he does not have a significant advantage in terms of physical fitness, but Sasaki is a typical goalkeeper who wins by reaction. Like Kokubo, Sasaki is also from the Kashiwa Sun God. In the case that the main goalkeeper position of the current Kashiwa first team was occupied by South Korean goalkeeper Kim Sung-kyu, Sasaki was temporarily unable to play the main force, but he was already the next generation of door gods recognized by the outside world. Moreover, because they were born in 2002 with Urawa's Suzuki Caiyan, they have also become the "rival CP" in people's minds.
It is worth mentioning that Sasaki's debut in the Kashiwa first team was in the League Cup against Urawa in March 2021, and the opponent was Suzuki as the goalkeeper, and the young goalkeeper achieved the first match on the professional field. In the same year, Sasaki also achieved his first start in the J-League, and his performance was unanimously recognized. However, since the goalkeeper position is very experience-based, Sasaki has not yet taken the main position from Kim Sung-kyu. In the final against Saudi U23, Sasaki was limitedly tested and hopefully he would get more opportunities in the future.
The Japanese U21 team, which was established to prepare for the Paris Olympics men's football team, will appear frequently in various intercontinental competitions in the coming period. Coach Ōiwa said he would build the team by the standards of an adult national team, and he hoped that the players would "not go to the national team through Paris to report, but to Paris as a legitimate international." In the second half of the year, this team will participate in the U23 Asian Cup, as well as the men's football competition at the Hangzhou Asian Games. In addition, in the East Asian Cup held in China in July, the Japanese Football Association also plans to send this U21 team to compete, you may wish to predict who will start against the national football team in the class.
Text/Supine Braces - Yangyuan Zhang