As soon as this interpretation came to my mind, a light bulb was switched on brightly in my head (in the head of Maya Yoshida the author, I should say) because this particular strength is the essence of ‘Maya power’. That’s the quality that has carried me through, all the way from my childhood to the present day as a Premier League defender, striving to improve to reach a higher standard, sometimes feeling low in a tough environment, sometimes having luck on my side to break through, via the city of Nagoya in Japan and of Venlo in the Netherlands, all the way to Southampton.
Until I received this publishing opportunity, I’d never said this English word ‘resilience’ out loud but it has always been inside me, I realised. The more I thought about it, the more I became sure of it. I also started to believe that I could convey my feelings, thoughts and stories well enough to readers in both the United Kingdom and Japan through a book, if it had ‘resilience’ as its underlying theme.
Needless to say, writing a book itself is not easy. I like writing, but finishing a book under the pressure of an approaching deadline is another matter. I was sure that I would sometimes need to fight off drowsiness as I sat in front of my computer. But I was also sure that my ‘strength of unbeatable mind’ would once again carry me through this new challenge.
It was a huge opportunity that I could not and should not miss – to make my début in the field of English publishing at the top level. There was no time to hesitate, I decided in the end.
Yes, let’s do this! I made one of the biggest decisions of my life. Well, that may be exaggerating a bit, but nonetheless I signed on a publishing contract that was also put in front of me at the beginning of my sixth year at Southampton.
There was one specific request from the publisher’s Japan office about the direction of this book. They wanted me to see myself as a samurai, a warrior of a high social rank in eleventh- to nineteenth-century Japan, but with a size-five football at my feet instead of a shiny sword in my hands. So, to be more precise, the theme of the book should be ‘samurai resilience’.
My initial reaction to this was that there seemed to be a slight difference between what Western people think of as a samurai and what we Japanese do. When I think of a samurai, what comes to my mind is someone prepared, if necessary, to kill himself by committing an act of hara-kiri – cutting his stomach open to die in order to avoid dishonour.
On the other hand, I am under the impression that people in Europe see a samurai in the image of a true warrior: a brave fighter who never gives up and keeps on going till the very end. It is an image of someone with incredible toughness, whose every deed is fortified by resilience. This Western view of a samurai, as I understand it, is also quite different from someone who loves cracking jokes, the image I project in the ‘Maya world’, if I may call it that – the world I have depicted in my blog and previous books.
In the football world, a defender, especially a centre-back, can be an easy target for criticism because a single mistake made in 90 minutes could cost the game for his team. Some might say it is a thankless position because a centre-back won’t be in the spotlight as often as a striker is but will be criticised for one costly mistake, even if it was made after 89 minutes and 59 seconds of an otherwise faultless performance. It may be true and I won’t deny it. But to me, getting criticised is part of the job as a professional defender.
My experience as a centre-back, good and bad, makes me appreciate even more all the support and encouragement I have received over the years. I cannot thank everyone enough. I know people sometimes feel frustrated, or even gutted, after watching my performance, but you ‘Maya supporters’ still cheer me no matter what. That unconditional support has strengthened the unbeatable mind that I have.
If I succeed in passing on some seed of resilience that I have found in my life so far to my supporters, or to people who have picked up this book because of their passion for Southampton FC, the Japan national football team, the Premier League or football itself, I will be a happy author.
Resilience can give you strength to keep moving forwards when you are caught in the rain or a storm, and keep you continuing on your journey through life. And it is a strength that resides in everyone. If you come to realise that, it will be a reward that I genuinely treasure as the author of this book.
CHAPTER 1
The origin: strength of the youngest
If I am to talk about resilience, I must start with my childhood in a city called Nagasaki where I was born, on the island of Kyushu located about 600 miles south-west of Tokyo. That is because one of the resilient traits I was born with is the ‘strength of the youngest’. I can hear some people saying, ‘What?’ and I certainly understand that there is no such definition for the word ‘resilience’ in any available dictionaries. But believe me, ‘strength of the youngest’ is a definition to be found in the dictionary of Maya Yoshida.
I started playing football for fun just before I was enrolled at a Japanese elementary school (Year 1 to Year 7 in the UK). I was the youngest of three brothers in my family and started playing in a kickabout with my two brothers and their friends. The J.League (Japan Professional Football League) started when I was around five years old, and was initially just a single division – although it has since grown to have three tiers. My brothers, who were already in their impressionable early teens by then, totally immersed themselves in the ‘soccer boom’ sweeping through the country, triggered by the creation of the much-anticipated domestic professional league.
All my brothers did whenever they had free time was play football. It was football during the lunch break, football after school and football at the weekend. Naturally, that meant it was the same for their youngest brother. It was football day in, day out for me, too. In my mind, having fun meant kicking a ball with them.
The city of Nagasaki back then didn’t have a local club in the J.League, so I didn’t really have a chance to watch a professional football game at a stadium. My sole live experience was when Verdy Kawasaki (now called Tokyo Verdy 1969) came to a town called Isahaya located in the middle of Nagasaki Prefecture for a game. If my memory serves me right, it was a game in the Emperor’s Cup (similar to the FA Cup here in England), not a league game, but I still remember the excitement I felt in the stand on that day, watching a professional football game right in front of me for the first time in my life.
I didn’t follow any particular club or players when I was a kid. I was more a big fan of football itself, especially playing the game. In most parts of Japan baseball is the number one professional sport. However, it wasn’t because football was particularly popular in Kyushu that I was drawn to the game. There were kids playing baseball, too, in my neighbourhood.
Having said that, maybe it was significant that there wasn’t a baseball team in my elementary school, but there was a football team. Hmmm, I guess I was fortunate to be born in a football-friendly environment. Anyway, what I wanted to say was that football was around me for as long as I can remember and playing football was just a natural thing for me to do to have fun as a kid.
However, there was one problem. The lads I always enjoyed a kickabout with were my brothers and their friends. I’m seven years younger than my oldest brother and six years younger than the other one. It meant that, even though I was big for an elementary-school boy, there was no way for me to compete physically with them when they were already going to junior high school (Year 8 to Year 10).
I was always the tallest among my classmates. I was 5’ 6” when I was 12, about six inches taller than the national average for that age. I remember also that I shot up to a little over 5’ 10” in the following 12 months. But I must have been only just above four foot tall when I started playing football and I could easily be brushed aside by my brothers and their friends, who were nearly a foot taller than me. So it was only natural for me to try to outsmart the boys who were physically stronger than I was, and try to play clever in order to compete with the much bigger lads. This way of thinking was always with me