Japanese players in vogue as English soccer clubs widen horizons

It seems that like baseball, Japanese players are the best in the world and every team wants a player like that. Basketball and Rugby are two other sports Japan is elite at. Japan was the best at the recent Olympics with a much smaller population than the other top countries.

Relatively cheap transfer fees have made Japanese players a canny investment, with Pannick calling them "more attractively valued than the equivalent player from anywhere else in the world".

Maybe more accurate to say buying Japanese players directly from a J-League club.

Endo didn’t come that cheap considering his age. Kagawa not a bargain either.

Still, 2.5 million for Mitoma a great investment even by Brighton’s very high standards of picking up quality for buttons.

Strong work ethics, hard work, and smartness has it's fruits.

Japanese football is definitely improving, but we have still yet to see a world class no 9 produced by this country.

Japanese football is definitely improving, but we have still yet to see a world class no 9 produced by this country

To be honest, we’ve yet to see a world class player in any position produced by Japan ( I’m defining ‘world class’ as a player in the argument for best in the world in the position ).

It would be great to see the next Messi, Maradona, Zidane or Pele come from Japan.