In April 2024, "Football Player" officially ended. In fact, it could have ended a long time ago...... In fact, nearly forty years ago, that is, the end of the elementary school chapter, it could have ended...... In fact, the historical mission of this comic may have been completed thirty years ago. It's just a long drag.
"'Soccer Player' is the kind of work that the more you know about football, the more outrageous and embarrassing it feels. But "Football Player" may be the most outstanding work in the history of comics. The two are not contradictory. This is also the magic of "Soccer Player".
So, let's first list the countless slots of "Football Player"...... The reason why I say that the elementary school chapter can be ended is because everyone who has read it remembers: - only in the elementary school chapter, there are all kinds of weird non-football plots: elementary school students can kick the ball from the mountain to the town with one kick, play 7-6 in a game, jump on the goal and shoot in the air, primary school students who deliberately kick the ball with heart disease, kick a curved ball in pairs, and shoot through the net with one shot......
And in junior high school, there are plots such as a shot that directly fell into the cement wall, and a shot that hit the goalpost directly and broke it. - Tiger shots, aerial shots, razor shots, northern long shots, spinning shots, flame shots, triangle kicks and catches, upside-down golden hooks and other funny nirvana that defy common sense, not to mention. - The disproportionate body at the beginning of the junior high school chapter is a joke for everyone.
——Except for the battle against Minghe, Dakongyi always wins, and the game is basically "passive→ Dakongyi dominates the lore", so Dakongyi basically only wins one goal forever. ——The opponent's ace is always arrogant at the beginning, and he is convinced after the game. - If Kenzo Hayashi, "you can't be broken outside the penalty area", and will always only play in finals and other occasions due to injury. - Hinata Kojiro "In order for Toho to accept me, I must score a goal from outside the penalty area with a long shot" and other funny logic. - When one-on-one with the goalkeeper, he always chooses to shoot vigorously (at the one who hurts). Etcetera.
But it's no wonder: the serialization of juvenile comics is a process of fighting monsters and upgrading, and it is interlocking. And football, if it doesn't involve complex crowding changes, just looking for individual hero gimmicks to seek new trends, it's just a bit of a trick. "Shaolin Football" said it: pass and stop with shooting.
Therefore, when "Football Player" was serialized, the primary school chapter also paid attention to passing the test, one new trick at a time:
Fight Xiuzhe and deal with birdcage tactics. Playing Minghe, playing a high score of 6 to 7. Playing flower wheels and dealing with aerial football. Playing Namba, I met a big fat goalkeeper like Nakanishi. Playing Musashi, encountering Misugi's heart disease genius and offside ball tactics. In the final, he played Mingwa and met the explosive version of Hinata Kojiro who lifted his demons...... In fact, by the end of the elementary school chapter, there is nothing new to make up.
So in the junior high school chapter, first drive Cape Taro and Wakabayashi away from Okubasa's side and make it more difficult for him, and then turn it into a shoot-to-goal shootout: against Nitta instantly, it is Okuta's falcon shot against him. For Makoto Hayata, it was Tsubasa Osura's razor-shot against him. For Hiroshi Jito, it was Tsubasa Daiku's cooperation with him and Sano's frenzied "insertion in the middle of a long shot"; For Hikaru Matsuyama, it is a long-range shot from the snow country against him - Hikaru Matsuyama has a super funny line: "How can my shooting be lost to those who have not practiced shooting in the snow!"
Then it's time for Japan to play France, Argentina, and West Germany...... This kind of passing-and-killing, must-kill counter-bombing stuff really depends on the enthusiasm and excitement: more moves, new, and strange than anyone.
In the short story collection, there is an even more hilarious chapter: the Japanese youth team without Okutsuba was beaten 6-0 and 7-0 by the Netherlands; Answer: Four defenders stared at each other's two strikers...... - it was a big laugh. As a result, this tactic was really effective: the four defenders stared at the opposite two forwards, and the opposing long-range shots were cleared by goalkeeper Wakashimazu, the big air wing arc ball assisted Hinata to score a goal, and the Dutch captain stepped forward to pull a goal, in the second half the big air wing barb 2-1, Cape Taro broke through the opposite goalkeeper 3-1, the opposing defender and goalkeeper were injured and went off, and then the Japanese team scored a goal and beat the Netherlands 10-1. - From 0-6 to 0-7, add a big air wing, and then "four guards staring at the opponent's double forwards", and return to a 10-to-1!
But after talking about so many slots...... I still have to add a piece of defense:
"Everybody says 'Soccer Player' is unrealistic. But that's where the idea of football comes in. Nowadays, more and more players are shooting with arcs (in the comics), and I think modern football is getting closer to the 'unreality' of "Soccer Player"!"
At first glance, this may sound like a fanatic manga fan, who said it by Masashi Nakayama, who scored the first World Cup goal for Japan in 1998 and played football until he was 45 years old before retiring.
When "Soccer Player" began serialization in 1981, Masashi Nakayama was 14 years old, and the Japanese football population was 110,000 at that time. At the end of the series in 1988, the Japanese football population was 240,000. The original words of Saburo Kawabuchi, former president of the Japanese Football Association:
"Soccer Player" has skyrocketed the number of boys who like football...... Before this manga was serialized, I had never seen children playing football on the roadside in Japan, but since the manga started to be serialized, I have seen more and more children playing football on the roadside.
It's not just the Japanese who are affected by this manga.
"Soccer Player" was serialized in 1988, when Aguero was born in Argentina, because he liked "Soccer Player" too much, so he named himself Kun. Stars who have publicly expressed their knowledge and even love for the comics, including but not limited to: Zidane, Thierry, Mbappe, Piero, Totti, Gattuso, Zambrotta, Inzaghi, Sergio Aguero, Kaka, Torres, Iniesta, Xavi, Sanchez, James, Podolski...... Even at the beginning of the 21st century, when Yoichi Takahashi tried to paint the big air wing to Barcelona, Barcelona even held a special press conference; legend has it that some people from Real Madrid laughed and asked Yoichi Takahashi at that time: Why didn't you arrange for the big air wing to come to Madrid? It really has an international influence. It's really getting generations into the pit.
Of course, as mentioned above, the plot of "Soccer Player" is too ridiculous, why do so many stars like it? This has to talk about a familiar example: Nadal said that his favorite anime to watch when he was a child was "Dragon Ball". When he was in school, he would run home to watch Dragon Ball at noon and say that the anime inspired him. We all know how unrealistic Dragon Ball is, but that doesn't stop Natto from liking Super Saiyans. Similarly, "Soccer Player" is definitely not a good realistic sports comic. If you really learn to play football according to this thing, people will probably have to scrap it. But for teenagers, they are really hot-blooded and good-looking, and they are very good at stimulating interest and seducing people.
The influence of this manga has even really affected the personnel structure of Japanese football......
In "Football Player", Dakong Wing went to junior high school and changed from a striker to a midfielder. Yoichi Takahashi's original intention was to "draw more scenes with big air wings and dribbling the ball", but it turned out to be ...... As we all know, Japanese football is rich in No. 10 position: Shunsuke Nakamura, No. 10 position. Shinji Kagawa, position 10. Keisuke Honda, No. 10. Shinji Ono, position 10. Mingbo Hao, No. 10. Hidetoshi Nakata, No. 10. So in 2007, "Asahi Shimbun" complained: In キャプテン翼の "wash" (below), the first sentence:
The reason why excellent human resources in Japan are biased toward midfielders is probably due to the influence of wings.
-- Japan's talented people are biased towards the midfield, isn't it the influence of the big empty wing?
Of course, "Football Player" is a work of the 1980s, and it has its rough and naïve side. But Japan is not limited to this football manga. After "Football Player", Japanese football rose, and football manga also emerged one after another: "Incarnate as Blue", "Reverse Supervision", and "Blue Prison". and the current popular "Green Reed".
The football skills and tactics of "Blue Reed" are not at all the same dimension as "Football Player". The protagonist is a teenager who resembles Xavi and has a full-field view, and is spotted by a Japanese coach who has traveled in Spain, and changes from striker to left-back - towards Joao Cancelo/Kimmich...... The team's style is basically moving forward according to Guardiola's ideas, and the opponent's concepts and skills and tactics encountered along the way collide, often like Klopp's Liverpool. The leveling and growth of the protagonist in the comics is no longer a special skill such as a tiger shot against a curve shot, but a similar intellectual problem solving: position, formation, position, coordination...... But such a cartoon must also have a territory with football soil for readers to be interested in reading it, right?
That is, from the 1980s, watching the lively and enthusiastic "Football Player", to the current "Green Reed" with technical and tactical learning as the protagonist's growth line. Presumably, the development route of Japanese football manga is also parallel to their own football soil and football philosophy. What kind of soil, what kind of football is produced, what kind of work is produced.
In the 2022 World Cup, Japan drew 1-1 with the last world runner-up Croatia in 120 minutes and was eliminated on penalties at the end. does not rely on superpowers, but on the accumulation of football skills and tactics. It's just that the rice is eaten one bite at a time. It's also impossible to eat all you can eat in one bite. Football careers and football cartoons didn't go all at once. How many Japanese people have come to this point because of the interest aroused by "Soccer Player", and then they have devoted themselves to football from generation to generation? Looking back, "Soccer Player" is very enthusiastic but very unrealistic, but it can really be, very good, the beginning of entering the pit.
At last:
At the end of the World Junior Chapter, Japan defeated West Germany. At the time, it was a dream: West Germany was runners-up in 1982 and 1986, and in 1990 West Germany won the third world championship in the team's history. Japan didn't even enter the World Cup until 1998. But in the 2022 World Cup, Japan did win against Germany.
Childish, hot-blooded, and made up nonsense - but in the end, it actually came true.