Japanese duos invade the big leagues

BeSoccer 4 years ago 266 |

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Japanese duos are invading the big leagues. AFP

With the arrival of Yoshinori Muto to Eibar, there is a curious fact: there are now three teams in the big leagues with at least a pair of Japanese players in their squad. There are six other duos in continental competitions and the Belgian side Sint-Truiden have five. Montenegro, a curious cradle of this nationality.

Japanese duos are starting to become a trend. The arrival of Yoshinori Muto to Eibar is the latest example of this. He joins Takashi Inui in Ipurua, something that already exists at Marseille, where Nagatomo and Sakai play, and Eintracht Frankfurt, where the midfielders Hasebe and Kamada already were.

Looking further at Europe, above the rest is Sint-Truiden in Belgium who have 5 players: Matsubara, Schmidt, Suzuki, Ito, and Nakamura. It has its explanation as in November 2017, the Japanese business DMM took control of the club. Two years ago six players from the country arrived.

The rest of the pairs in Europe are Gonda and Koki Anzai (Portimonense); Wermeskerken and Nakayama (PEC Zwolle); Kaito Hayashi and Kiyota (Jezero Montenegro), Kato and Yamamoto (Iskra Danilovgrad Montenegro); Tatsu and Ryonosuke Ohori (BFC Daugavpils Latvia), and Sentoku and Suzuki (Mladost Ljeskopolje Montenegro).