16 Jan 2003(Thu)

It is always a pleasure to report on the closing rounds of Japan's high school tournament in the new year.

I admire the organization of the championship and enjoy the atmosphere in which games are played. The football is honest and the players are trying their best for the honor of their school.

What has always surprised me, though, is the number of media people who report on this event.

At Tokyo's National Stadium on Monday, for example, there were 240 reporters, 140 photographers and 20 TV networks, including six major stations.

After the game, the players were chased after by so many media people that the scenes resembled Ronaldo after the World Cup final at Yokohama!

Now, I am not criticizing this approach; just trying to highlight how different it is from Europe and South America.

In Japan, these players were 17 and 18 years old and still at high school. Some of them will be joining a J.League club; others will go to university.

In England, at this age the best young players are already with professional clubs. They can join from school as a trainee at 16 and turn professional at 17, such as Wayne Rooney has just done at Everton.

The high school final in England?

I don't even know if there is one, because the media would never attend. The result of the final might get one line in a big national newspaper, such as The Daily Telegraph, but no one would be interested except the players and their parents.

But in Japan this is a major media event, and it has its good and bad points.

Yes, I think it's good to identify the best young players, many of whom go on to become J.League regulars.

But is all this publicity, all this media attention, good for them at such an early age?

During my six years in Japan, foreigners and some Japanese alike have pointed out that "stardom" comes too easily in Japan. Players are put on a pedestal and are the subjects of major magazine articles before they have achieved much in their careers.

Philippe Troussier said this treatment made the players soft, took away their hunger to keep progressing and gave them the belief they had already made it into the big time.

Dunga, too, once asked me not to write too much about the young Jubilo forward Maeda after he had scored a wonderful solo goal at Ecopa. He said players in Japan received too much attention too quickly in their careers.

And the former JEF United Ichihara manager, Jozef Venglos, was always reluctant to talk about his good young players like Abe and Hanyu for fear the publicity would make them big-headed, even though, privately, he admired their qualities.

For me, the high school championship is very enjoyable to attend, but the achievements of these players must be put in context with the big picture of the football world.

ends