16 Oct 2008(Thu)

October 14, 2008: After a goal-filled final of the All Japan Under-18 Youth Championship on Monday, there was only one striker on the mind of German coaching professor Dettmar Cramer.

And it wasn't anyone from the astonishing match he had just witnessed, a final which ended Urawa Reds 9 Nagoya Grampus 1...that's right, 9-1. (Not even Nagoya Grampus 8 would have been good enough on this day.)

With a glint in his eyes, Cramer spoke wistfully of Japanese hero Kunishige Kamamoto, and said he was convinced there was another Kamamoto out there. The Japan Football Association just had to find him to cure what he described as "the Asian disease" -- the lack of an outstanding goalscorer in the national team.

"If this happened in the Sixties, it can happen again in the 21st century," Cramer, now 83, said at Saitama Stadium 2002.

"Japan needs a scouting system to find the second Kamamoto, and that means time, money, organisation and enthusiasm. The talent is there because I have just seen it, but we have to locate it. In the 1960s we found it in Kyoto; maybe the next Kamamoto is in Hokkaido. It is Japan's duty to find him."

Cramer is regarded as the Godfather of Japanese football for the role he played in building the game here in the 1960s. The pinnacle, of course, was Japan's bronze medal in the 1968 Mexico Olympics, when Kamamoto was the tournament's top scorer and Cramer was the team's technical director.

"He first came to me in 1961 when he was a high school boy in Kyoto. I was holding a junior camp, and he played one half of a trial match. He scored two goals in 45 minutes and I took him immediately as a new player for the national team.

"In 1965 he was the best centre forward in Asia, and in 1968 he was outstanding in the Olympic Games. He was the best scorer of the 16 teams, and these included Brazil, Spain, Hungary, Bulgaria and France."

Cramer, who went on to coach Bayern Munich to two European Cups in the mid-1970s, said he had asked Kamamoto himself to find the new Kamamoto.

"I told him, 'Kama', you must go around the country and find the second Kamamoto. I am sure Japan has another Kamamoto."

So what qualities must a scout be looking for?

According to Cramer, "Self-confidence, instinct. He wants to score and he believes in himself. He must have strong willpower. From there you develop the skills."

ends