Hirayama should have turned professional earlier
AUGUST 2 2005：One player in Japan has baffled me for a while now...and he still does.
That player is Sota Hirayama who has become a media darling in Japan without achieving much if anything in the real world of football.
As readers may know I have never understood the hype surrounding Hirayama.
Okay he is tall for his age very tall for a Japanese player of his age and this enabled him to dominate the air waves at schoolboy level.
He scored a lovely goal a back-post header on his Olympic team debut but of course he looked very raw and in my opinion at times uncoordinated.
In all honesty I did not think he was ready to lead the Olympic team and I still think it was a mistake for Yamamoto-kantoku to put so much faith in him. Takayuki Suzuki in the absence of Takahara would have done a much better job.
But that is in the past and not the point of this article.
I read the other day that Hirayama is going to spend some time with Feyenoord.That is an interesting move and a surprising one as I thought he was concentrating on Tsukuba University and not planning to play professional football until graduating.
I could never understand Hirayama's decision to go to Tsukuba instead of joining a J.League club after leaving Kunimi. Leaving university at 22 and turning professional is six years too late.
It is a wasted six years during which a young player could have learned so much about the game. At 22 it is very difficult to step up and a player has only six or seven years left in him to reach the top as 26-28 is regarded as the peak.
Maybe Hirayama is regretting it too and that is why he is going to train with Feyenoord.
If Feyenoord took him on it could be the perfect situation for Hirayama playing for a big club in a small league and being cared for and nurtured by a coach who could pick him for certain games and develop him slowly.
Hirayama despite the adulation in Japan is far from the finished product but if he goes to learn his trade in Holland he still has a chance.Or if he went into the J.League.
If he stays in Japan and plays for Tsukuba it is a waste of time for himself and Japan will never know how good he is or could be.
ends
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