several countries while in Europe. I could sense something different about those kids, a scent of foreign culture, and I was attracted to it. In my mind, anything foreign was extremely cool and the English language expressed that coolness verbally. That’s how I initially got into the language when I was a junior high-school student.
Then, at high school, I decided that English was an essential subject. My desire to play football abroad had developed into something like a plan for my future by the time I became a high-school student. ‘To go abroad, English is a must as a communication tool,’ I thought. So I studied it really seriously.
I can’t say I did anything special or extra apart from attending my English classes. Unlike during my previous three years at junior high school, I didn’t have much energy or time left after spending the day at school and then at the club for football training. But at least I tried to put 120 per cent into my English class. I did my best to learn English grammar and to increase my vocabulary without falling asleep (‘You can’t call that a big effort,’ some might say …).
I know grammar and vocabulary aren’t everything when it comes to learning a foreign language, but in any language, including my native Japanese tongue, if your grasp of its grammar and vocabulary is poor, your writing and speaking will lack clarity, as you will end up repeatedly using similar and awkward expressions. I didn’t want to be like that when it came to moving abroad, so, to me, getting the basics of English grammar and vocabulary right in my high-school years was very important.
In terms of having a conversation in English, I was nowhere near being able to do that at the time. There was a class for listening and speaking at school, but I didn’t find it very practical or useful. At Grampus there were some foreign coaches and foreign first-team players, but none of them were English natives. I had heard that watching English movies without Japanese subtitles could be a good way to improve one’s listening comprehension, but I found that too frustrating. Besides lacking patience, I was also short of the stamina required, after a day’s school and youth-team training, to sit through another 90 minutes or so of watching a movie that I couldn’t really understand.
But I was training my English ears a little by listening to the American or British music that I loved. Again, it’s not like I made an extra effort, such as trying to remember the lyrics or to understand the words with a dictionary in my hand; I’d simply been getting used to hearing English in this way since my early teens. In my high-school days I remember listening to songs by an American band called Maroon 5, whose popularity rose in Japan at that time. I also liked the music of rock or blues gods such as Aerosmith or Eric Clapton, though I tended to go for slower, mellower tunes, such as their ballads, as it was easier for me to catch some of the words in the lyrics.
It was at this time that Sugao Kambe and the late Che Hyon Pak helped me to see England as the ultimate destination in my football life. They came to the Grampus academy as coaches from another J.League club called Jef United Ichiahara Chiba when I was 16. Mr Kambe had more of a directorial role; Mr Pak spent most of his time coaching us, and so was key in helping me to become a Japanese centre-back playing abroad.
Under the new coach, we started – or were ordered, I should say – to watch Premier League games on DVD as part of our football education. Watching matches involving clubs like Liverpool or Chelsea, I couldn’t help but be super-impressed. The fans were so noisy, I could feel the atmosphere inside the stadiums through the TV screen! When a goal was scored, I could feel the passion of the fans as they went nuts.
Watching these matches, I immediately wanted to play in England, and somehow I soon came to believe, ‘That’s where I will play.’ It was typical of me; my innate optimism and self-belief have, I believe, helped me every step along the way to get to where I am now.
It was Mr Pak who converted me back to a defensive midfielder. Defensive midfielder? Convert back? Yes, that’s right. Maya Yoshida wasn’t a natural-born centre-back.
Pre-centre-back era
When I started to play football for fun, I was kicking the ball as if I was a fantasista on the pitch. Everybody did so as a kid, I believe, and I was no exception. I was playing as a striker or a number 10, a star role in my team when I was little. I had no inkling whatsoever of my suitability as a defender. I never ever thought, ‘I’d be good as a defender.’ Even when I watched a game of football, my eyes were drawn to attacking players.
I think it is particularly the case with my generation that, as kids, we preferred playing behind the striker and setting up a goal rather than actually scoring as a forward. We had grown up reading a hugely popular football manga titled ‘Captain Tsubasa’ (a modern Japanese version of the Roy of the Rovers cartoon strip character over here). I was one of numerous Japanese football kids who wanted to play the number 10 role, just as the main character, Tsubasa, did in the manga. When in a one-on-one situation with a goalkeeper, I would rather square the ball nonchalantly for my onrushing team-mate to score than beat the goalie and score myself. That was cool, like Tsubasa, and I loved it.
However, as I grew up and climbed the ladder towards a professional career, my position on the pitch moved further and further back. Now playing as a centre-back, there is only a goalkeeper left behind me. But until I reached around 14 years of age, towards the end of my second year at junior high school, I was a central midfielder. And when Mr Pak became a coach at the Grampus academy he put me back in the middle of the pitch.
Recently, I had a chance to join Kei Yamaguchi, a former defensive midfielder and my senior from my Grampus days at a football clinic held in Japan, and there I discovered that even he and many other seniors at the club thought I’d come up through the youth ranks as a centre-back. Little did they know that I became a professional footballer as a central midfielder.
People see me solely as a centre-back these days, but in my mind I’m always a former midfielder. I believe my experience in an anchor-man role helped me to make a great leap during my youth development. I even think that I couldn’t have become a professional if I hadn’t spent my final two years in the youth team (age 16 to 18) as a defensive midfielder. That is how strongly I feel about the importance to me – in terms of my career – of having formerly been a midfielder.
The fact that I’m comfortable with my allegedly weaker left foot, a trait more common among midfielders than defenders, however, has more to do with the fact that I’ve always tried to be two-footed since I was a kid. In my elementary-school days I used to practise using a slope near my home. I kicked a ball up from the bottom of the slope and when the ball was rolling down back I controlled it and kicked it again. I repeated this over and over again, using my right and left foot in turn.
My background as a defensive midfielder still influences how I play today. As a centre-back, when I have to deal with the ball either with my foot or my head, I usually try to check my team-mates’ positions around me and make a pass rather than a mere clearance, if possible. That awareness of space and the position of a team-mate comes from being a defensive midfielder.
I also know from experience that it will be really tough for a defensive midfielder if a clearance by a centre-back gives the ball straight back to the opponents. My teammates’ workload depends on whether or not we can build up from the back line after stopping the opponent’s attack. If I can feed the ball to a team-mate, it gives the whole team time to move forwards rather than retreating to defend again.
That’s just a small part of what we defenders do but it’s the sort of detail that can make a huge difference in terms of how a game goes and how tired team-mates become. When I started watching games on DVD, I realised that good Premier League players always care about such details. Those viewing sessions were very beneficial for someone like me, adept at learning simply through observation.
Players I admired – and hugely optimistically started looking forward to playing with on the same pitch, whether as a team-mate or an opponent – were also mainly midfielders, such as Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard or Claude Makélélé. Gerrard and Lampard were especially influential for me. I thought they were a class apart even among the other accomplished Premier League players of that era.
Playing in central