Introduction | Something Worth Noticing in the World Cup Squad
This month, Japan’s 26-man squad for the FIFA World Cup 2026 in North America was announced.
Kubo Takefusa. Doan Ritsu. Endo Wataru. A remarkable group of players — but did you notice something else hidden within the squad?
Several of them took a path that barely exists anywhere else in world football: they went to university first.
Nagatomo Yuto (Meiji University), Taniguchi Shogo (Tsukuba University), Watanabe Tsuyoshi (Chuo University), Hayakawa Tomoki (Meiji University), Ueda Ayase (Hosei University), Ito Junya (Kanagawa University), and Shiogai Kento (Keio University).
And while he was left out of this squad through injury, the player widely regarded as Japan’s most electric winger — Mitoma Kaoru — is also a university graduate. Tsukuba University, to be exact.
By global standards, this is remarkable.
In Spain, Brazil, or England, world-class players almost universally move from club academies directly into professional football as teenagers. The idea of going to university, playing college football, and then becoming a world-class professional is vanishingly rare in global football culture.
So why does it keep happening in Japan?
Why University Football Is So Deeply Rooted in Japan
The answer begins with education.
In Japan, progressing from high school to university is considered the social and cultural default. For most families, it is simply what young people do after graduating high school — regardless of what they want to pursue. Football is no exception. Even players with professional ambitions are able to choose university without that choice being seen as giving up.
The opening of the J.League in 1993 created a more direct pathway from high school into professional football. But alongside it, the university route remained — and for many players, it remained the right choice.
There is also a more practical reason: the level of university football in Japan is genuinely high. Clubs from Tsukuba University, Meiji University, Hosei University, Ryutsu Keizai University, and Kanagawa University regularly compete against — and sometimes defeat — professional J.League sides in the Emperor’s Cup. These are not casual student teams.
University football in Japan is not a waiting room for players who couldn’t make it elsewhere. It is a serious, competitive stage in its own right.
What University Football Actually Looks Like Day to Day
For families here in New Zealand, it can be easy to imagine Japanese university football as something loosely organised — a few sessions a week, fitting around lectures.
The reality at top programmes is completely different.
Six days a week is standard. Five days of training, one day of matches. At the stronger programmes, players live in team dormitories, with meals, sleep schedules, and physical conditioning all managed within a structured environment. It is, by any measure, a full-time commitment to football.
The competition level is genuinely high. The top division of the Kanto University Football League regularly features players who already have professional contracts confirmed for the following season, as well as “special designated players” — those who are permitted to appear for J.League clubs while still enrolled at university. Physically and technically, it is a serious league.
Speaking from my own experience as someone who has played in both environments: I believe the top level of Japanese university football is more competitive than New Zealand’s national league. I say that not to diminish football here, but to give an honest sense of what Japanese university football actually is.
That intensity is part of what keeps producing players capable of competing at the highest level in Europe.
Players Who Could Have Gone Pro Earlier — and Chose Not To
Here is a question worth sitting with.
If a player is good enough to turn professional at 18, why would they choose university instead?
Mitoma Kaoru grew up in the Kawasaki Frontale academy — one of the most respected club development systems in Japan. A direct path into professional football was within reach. He chose Tsukuba University instead.
His own words: “I just didn’t feel confident enough to make it at the top level. I also wanted to look at myself and my football from a longer-term perspective.”
At Tsukuba, he studied exercise physiology and sports nutrition. His graduation thesis was titled “A Study on Information Processing by Attacking Players in 1v1 Situations in Football” — and he carried out the research by mounting a GoPro camera to his head to analyse where his eyes moved when dribbling past opponents. The dribbler who later mesmerised the Premier League was, in his university years, scientifically studying why his dribbling worked.
Ueda Ayase’s story is different in detail, but similar in spirit. He was part of the Kashima Antlers junior academy as a teenager, but did not progress to the youth team. He went to Hosei University — and from there, became one of the most prolific strikers in Dutch top-flight history as a Japanese player.
Ito Junya’s path is perhaps the most striking of all. His high school team was eliminated in the round of 32 of the Kanagawa prefectural tournament — a long way from the national stage. By any conventional measure, he was not on the radar. But a university scout happened to see him play and offered him a place. At Kanagawa University, he became the league’s top scorer and won Best Eleven two years in a row. A professional club then came calling.
University football did not slow Ito Junya down. It was where he was found.
What University Football Actually Teaches
So what does a player gain from these four years — beyond the football itself?
The technical and tactical development is real. But from my own experience, the deeper gains are often elsewhere.
I played university football myself. And what I took away from those years was not just an improved understanding of the game. We planned our own training schedules as a team. We negotiated and contracted our own coaches and managers directly. Nothing was handed to us — everything the team needed, we had to think through and organise ourselves.
That experience of thinking as an organisation, and moving as one, absolutely shaped how I read and respond to situations on the pitch. I feel that clearly now, looking back.
The academic environment matters too. Mitoma’s background in exercise physiology is said to have shaped how he approaches physical conditioning as a professional. The classroom does not stay separate from the pitch.
Shiogai Kento — the youngest member of this World Cup squad — studied at Keio University’s Faculty of Law while playing for the university football team. The motto of the high school coach who developed him was: “Football champions and Tokyo University-level academics.” Not one or the other. Both, at the same time, taken seriously.
That philosophy produced a player good enough for a top-flight European club at 20 years old.
Something the Rest of the World Finds Hard to Understand
Whenever I describe this pathway to families from New Zealand or Europe, the response is usually the same.
“They go to university until they’re 22 — and then they can still become professional footballers?”
Yes. Not just professional footballers. Japan national team players. World Cup players.
This is genuinely unusual. As the rest of the world accelerates towards earlier and earlier specialisation, Japan has maintained a parallel route — one where players can grow more slowly, more broadly, and still arrive at the highest level.
Is it the right route? That depends on the player.
But if the university experiences of Ueda Ayase at Hosei, Mitoma Kaoru at Tsukuba, and Ito Junya at Kanagawa helped make them the players they are today — then perhaps the so-called detour was never a detour at all.
Closing Thoughts | A Path Worth Considering for Your Child
Many of our readers at Glocal Football have connections to Japan — or a genuine interest in Japanese football culture and the values it carries.
When thinking about your child’s future in football, it is easy to picture a single line: talent spotted young, academy, professional club, career. That image is real, and for some players it is the right path.
But the players in this article show that another path exists.
Japanese university football is not simply a place to keep playing. It is an environment where players compete at a high level, develop the capacity to think and lead within an organisation, grow academically, and arrive at professional football not just as better players — but as more complete people.
Playing football seriously, while becoming a fuller human being. That is what four years in Japanese university football can offer.
If your child has ambitions in football, and a connection to Japan — the possibility of studying and playing at a Japanese university is a real and meaningful option. Not a consolation path. Not a fallback.
One more route worth knowing exists.
