Number of characters| 2096 characters
Recommended reading time| 7 minutes
On January 18, the Japan Professional Players Association (JPFA) announced the results of the first annual best selection, and the winner of the "2022 Best Player" was Kaoru Mikasa. This is undoubtedly a well-deserved result. The 25-year-old Japan international winger, in addition to his consistent and important performance in 2022, is also showing ferocious growth momentum: boosting in the first half of the year
Royal Saint Gilles United
Ranked 2nd in the 2021-22 season; In the second half of the year, he successfully established himself in the Premier League to help Brighton become a strong team killer; At the national team level, they made a key contribution, first helping Japan reach the World Cup finals, and then passed the "Death Group" test to reach the round of 16. Kaoru Mikasa also made a classic in the final round of the group stage, lightning out of bounds before the ball was about to go out of bounds, "crimping" 1.88mm assist Bi Tanaka, Japan was able to defeat Spain 2-1 and finally qualify.
Kaoru Mikasa, nicknamed the "three-ball king", is 25 years old, but because of his college experience, he really entered the professional football scene in 2020, and is actually only a rookie who has only debuted for 3 years. His promotion is so strong, which also makes the market have higher hopes for him.
A metamorphosis of 2022
Like many Japanese internationals, Kaoru Mikasa is progressively ascending to higher stages. Graham Porter's Brighton signed Kaoru Mikasa from Kawasaki Frontale in the J-League in August 2021 and then loaned him to sister team St. Gilles United (both owned by professional poker player Tony Bloom) for a season to train in the Premier League this season, and he gradually adapted until he became the number one danger up front.
Unlike many players, Kaoru Mikasa received a full college education. After joining the Kawasaki Frontale youth academy at the age of 10, he felt that he was not ready for professional football before entering the first team, so he chose to study and play college games while studying sports at the prestigious University of Tsukuba. Perhaps it was higher education that made him more mindful and able to understand football in all aspects, and after graduating, he officially debuted from Kawasaki Frontale in the 2020 season, brushing up rare prolific statistics and helping the team to be crowned the double champion of the J1 League and the Emperor's Cup.
On the left side of the front, Kaoru Mikasa either rushes straight with pure speed or changes the rhythm to break through, or cuts straight into the box or crosses from the bottom line, dribbling past the opponent always works, and entering the danger zone is always threatening. He can also "play with his head up" while dribbling, so he has good vision and is more lethal. This season, Brighton has jumped from the bench to the main player, and Kaoru Mikasa has many of the best statistics in the Premier League: on average, he touches the ball in the opponent's box 7.67 times (5th in the Premier League), 2.19 successful passes (4th), and 0.26 assists (3rd) in sports battles. And he made eight passes in the opponent's penalty area, a statistic that only Messi (nine) has more of the five major leagues this season. In addition, Kaoru Mikata is also actively involved in defense, averaging 1.2 tackles per game among wingers.
At the World Cup in Qatar, when Japan created a classic moment of "crimping", Kaoru Mikasa's efforts to turn the tide were crucial, but coach Hoichi Mori believed too much in the strategy of late strike, and used Kaoru Mikasa as a substitute in the second half. Of course, this move will help the "three-goal king" become a more dynamic new force, but the only half-time playing undoubtedly limits his playing time. In the 1/8 final match against Croatia, Kaoru Mikasa failed to play the surprise again, and was saved in the second round of the penalty shootout, achieving Livakovic's prestige, and he burst into tears in the post-match interview, which was moving. However, such sad moments are placed in the highlights of his 2022 year, and it is harmless.
Breaking through the ceiling?
After the tempering of the World Cup, Kaoru Mikasa rose to the next level and his status in Brighton's team skyrocketed. From the end of Porter's tenure to the beginning of De Zeerby's tenure, Kaoru Mikasa was only gradually adapting to the Premier League-style rotation players, and only entered the main squad before the World Cup, and after the World Cup, he not only started unshakably, but also seized the opportunity of the original offensive head Trosar falling out with Dezelby, seeking a transfer to leave the team (and eventually join Arsenal), and stood in the C position on the offensive end. At the end of the year and the beginning of the year, Kaoru Mikasa first scored consecutive goals against Arsenal and Everton (and one goal against the Gunners was ruled invalid), and then provided assists to Middlesbrough and Liverpool, contributing 2 goals and 2 assists in 4 games, and the limelight was strong. In a 3-0 win over Liverpool at home in the Premier League, Kaoru Mikasa contributed his masterpiece, driving straight on the left flank and snatching one-on-one as if it were no man's land, making Reds right-back Alexander Arnold the latest casualty at his feet.
But the battle against the Reds also revealed Kaoru Mikasa's shortcomings: after completing the breakthrough, his shooting choices were slightly sloppy and did not create a greater threat. Kaoru Mikasa has played a prolific record of scoring 30 goals in 62 games, but his stats of eight goals in 29 games at Saint-Gilles (the first goal was a hat-trick as a substitute) and four goals in 17 games at Brighton are clearly far behind the top players. Improving his shooting ability will of course be his next project.
While studying at the University of Tsukuba, Kaoru Mikasa asked his classmates to wear an action camera to record dribbling movements, analyze the choices of different players when dribbling, and interpret the gaze of offensive and defensive players, and completed a thesis based on the important thesis, one of the important thesis that "a good dribbler does not look at the ball at all, but looks straight ahead, and completes the action without looking at the feet", and his later efficient dribbling is undoubtedly also benefited from this research. Now at Brighton, Kaoru Mikasa is still using analytical data to help improve himself, analyzing his opponent's weaknesses based on data and video before the game, and reviewing his gains and losses after the game. Given this hard and effective experience, the scene of shooting improvement is also likely to appear in Kaoru Mikasa's subsequent career, which will allow him to be favored by stronger teams and even truly impact the first-class star sequence.
It is the norm for Japanese football to lead in Asia and for the national team to reach the top eight of the World Cup, but it is also an indisputable fact that there is no such superstar as Son Heung-min among the current players. Kamada Daichi, who excelled in Eintracht Frankfurt, performed poorly in the World Cup, and Takumi Minamino, Junya Ito, and Hang Endo may not be able to enter a higher level because of their age, and hope may be in younger players such as Kenhiro Tomiyasu and Kenei Kubo, and Kaoru Mikasa's growth rate is so fast, it is even more eye-catching.
Japanese players have no experience of great success in the Premier League in the past, whether it is the forerunners Junichi Inamoto, Kazuyuki Toda, Hidetoshi Nakata who comes and goes in a hurry, or Ryo Miyaichi, Shinji Kagawa, Takumi Minamino who are far from meeting expectations in the giants, and even Yoshiki Muto, who has a very low sense of existence, the highest achievers can only be Maya Yoshida, the main player of Southampton for many years, and Shinji Okazaki, a fairy tale participant in Leicester City. Now Kaoru Mikasa and Kenhiro Tomiyasu are playing side by side in the first league of football, and Tomiyasu, who was quite outstanding at Arsenal last season, has been reduced to a substitute this season due to injury, and Kaoru Mikasa has been quickly promoted from the bench, and he needs to continue to break through until he breaks the tradition. The tears of being out of the World Cup and the original MVP honor selected by JPFA peers may all provide him with motivation.
Author: Han Saiwen
The image comes from the Internet