Brighton have just managed to keep hold of Moises Caicdeo in the January transfer window but the high-flying Premier League side should get ready to face big-money bids for another of their stars this summer.
Right now, Kaoru Mitoma is one of the best wide players in England’s top flight. That’s big. How many Japanese players have been successful in the Premier League? He’s got the potential to be the most successful — if he isn’t already.
His winning goal against Liverpool in the FA Cup last weekend was a masterpiece, but such technical brilliance should come as no surprise.
I’ve been raving about Kaoru since my time in the J-League, when he was a standout player in the Kawasaki Frontale side that won the J1 and Emperor’s Cup double in 2020, probably one of the best club teams Japanese football has ever seen.
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What he's doing now, with four goals in seven starts since the World Cup, reminds me of the way he was playing at Kawasaki. Things look easy, he’s ghosting past players and he’s intelligent. That’s why I was so disappointed that he didn’t play more in Qatar. I don’t want to blame Hajime Moriyasu too much because the manager will have his own ideas but I know what the Japanese mentality is like.
There is a strong sense of loyalty towards players who have got you somewhere rather than saying ‘you know what, how many more World Cups am I going to be in? I need to choose the best players, the ones who are going to be in the best form'. For example, Daichi Kamada shouldn't have been playing but he played because of his reputation, not because he was playing well. Takuma Asano should have started because every time he played he made a difference.
Mitoma was amazing and he’s always a threat. He can come inside and score, he can go down wide areas and his end product is good. I wouldn’t be surprised if one of the big teams came and signed him. He could end up somewhere like Tottenham or it’s not out of the realms of possibility that you could say Liverpool or Man City. He’s that good, although Liverpool might be sick of the sight of him at this stage!
I definitely think Mitoma has the same kind of ceiling in terms of ability as players like Rafael Leao or Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, who are being spoken about guys who could go for more than £100 million in the close season. Kaoru won’t be viewed at that level, unfortunately, because he’s Japanese and not from Europe or a traditionally big football nation.
Imagine you put him at Man City, what’s he going to be like then? Brighton don’t play a dissimilar way to Man City, Pep Guardiola just has much better players. If you said to me right now, who would you take on the left side of Man City out of Mitoma and Jack Grealish, I’d probably say Mitoma.
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That’s not because Grealish is a bad player but I think Mitoma would suit Man City better. He has the discipline needed. He played in that way at Kawasaki, in that Japanese style where no one is more important than anyone else. At Aston Villa, Grealish was so successful because he could go anywhere on the pitch and get the ball.
Grealish himself has said that he struggled a bit learning how to play in a structure. Mitoma has always played within that kind of structure but just became really good at it.
Someone like Kaoru can break the mould for football in Japan. You could say the same for Takefusa Kubo at Real Sociedad.
It’s a cultural thing in Japan to think of “arrogance” as a bad word but you need arrogance to go on a football pitch and be successful. Being polite and respectful when you come off the pitch is a must in every culture. But on the pitch, you need to have arrogance.
There were guys I played with like Hayao Kawabe and Koji Miyoshi who I knew had the potential to go to Europe and I tried to help them because Japan lacked for the necessary one-to-one coaching then. It’s getting better but there’s still a long way to go.
What I said to the players that I’ve worked with that ended up going to Europe was, ‘go abroad, be successful, come back and teach the players when you come back with the mindset’. Come back and give back to Japanese football. I want to see more of that.
All of that is hopefully a long way off in Mitoma’s future. Right now, Kaoru is showing he has the ability to be one of the very best in an elite league. That could be a game-changer for Japanese football.
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