Japan's Bundesliga stars prove Germany's downfall

Back in August on the second weekend of the Bundesliga season, SC Freiburg's Japanese midfielder Ritsu Doan was on the receiving end of a nasty foul from Nico Schlotterbeck.

The challenge had the Freiburg bench up in arms while the Borussia Dortmund and Germany defender later earned a telling off for admitting that he had "wanted to send a message" to his faltering teammates with a tough tackle.

Three months later, however, it's Doan who has had the last laugh, drawing Japan level against Germany as the "Samurai Blue" came from behind to win their World Cup opener 2-1.

Ahead of Japan's World Cup opener against Germany in Al-Rayyan, the 24-year-old said that he and his teammates were aware of "Germany's individual quality."

But little of that was evident when Doan tapped home unmarked in the box, and certainly not when VfL Bochum's Takuma Asano burst past the stationary Schlotterbeck to score the winner.

With eight players in the Japanese squad playing their club football in Germany, it was fitting that Japan's historic victory was born in the Bundesliga.

Doan and Asano's Bundesliga progress

Doan's equalizer was the latest instalment in his rise to prominence in German football. What started with a loan spell with Arminia Bielefeld has more recently seen him play a starring role with Freiburg who, despite losing that game to Dortmund in August, are currently sat second in the Bundesliga and thriving in the German Cup and Europa League.

For Bochum's Asano, the winning goal was the perfect tonic for the disappointment of 2018, when he was overlooked for Japan's squad for the World Cup in Russia despite playing a key role in qualifying.

Before the World Cup got underway, Asano admitted that "the football gods have not made things easy for me" following a knee injury suffered against Schalke back in September. While he faced stiff competition on the back of his spell on the sidelines, the faith shown by head coach Hajime Moriyasu was repaid against Germany.

Moriyasu's counterpart Hansi Flick said he was "a fan of Japanese football," but that likely won't be the case any more after they dented his side's World Cup hopes in the opening game of Group E.

Japan's win though is just the latest twist in the intertwining worlds of German and Japanese football, itself part of a much broader relationship between the two countries.

Germany and Japan: a historic relationship on and off the pitch

In 2021, Germany and Japan celebrated 160 years of friendship between the two countries, a relationship which has produced valuable cultural exchange, but also endured more difficult periods.

After emerging from isolation in the 19th century, the German Empire's civil code was influential in the modernization of Japanese society, while German industrial, medical and military techniques were also imitated. Many Japanese medical terms are derived from German, as is the word "arubaito," meaning casual, part-time work, from the German "Arbeit."

Described by German historian Manfred Osten as the "Prussians of Asia," however, Japan's militarism and imperialism also led it into a disastrous alliance with Nazi Germany during World War Two. Following the unconditional surrender of the Axis powers in 1945, Germany and Japan soon renewed their relationship via football – and courtesy of one man in particular.

Dortmund-born coach Dettmar Cramer moved to Japan to become the national team's technical director in the early sixties, and quickly became a popular and well-known figure in the Land of the Rising Sun. It wasn't long before Japanese players began traveling in the opposite direction, starting with Yasuhiko Okudera, who won the Bundesliga with Cologne in 1978.

German internationals Pierre Littbarski (Cologne) and Guido Buchwald (Stuttgart) also enjoyed successful spells playing and coaching Japan, before the footballing links between the two countries took on a whole new dimension in the new millennium.

'Bundesliga highly regarded in Japan'

When Japan hosted the World Cup with South Korea in 2002, just four of the squad were plying their trade abroad. The Samurai Blue were ultimately knocked out in the last-16, but the knock-on effects of the tournament saw the J-League rise to prominence to become a key source of talent in European scouting networks.

In Germany, two-time Bundesliga winner Shinji Kagawa is held is high regard after Borussia Dortmund managed to sign him for less than €400,000 ($416,000) in one of the biggest bargain deals of the modern football age.

Nowadays, while Doan and Asano are starring for Freiburg and Bochum, it's arguably Eintracht Frankfurt who are making the biggest impact in Japan. The Eagles' Japanese Twitter account has over 31,000 followers and the team has just returned from a mid-season tour of Tokyo and Osaka.

Indeed, with so many Japanese journalists reporting on Makoto Hasebe – the Bundesliga's all-time record Japanese appearance maker with 362 games – and top scorer Daichi Kamada (seven goals), Eintracht Frankfurt even have a separate area in their post-match mix zone.

Elsewhere, Wataro Endo has earned legendary status in Stuttgart after scoring a last-gap winner to keep the Swabians in the Bundesliga last season.

"The Bundesliga is highly regarded in Japan," Endo told Kicker magazine recently. "Not only Japanese players are attracted to the Bundesliga, many coaches from Japan also look to Germany and this league."

A total of 39 Japanese players have featured in the Bundesliga where their discipline, selflessness and work ethic dovetail perfectly with the demands and expectations of German football. Ironically, it was those qualities that proved the difference against Germany as Asano and Doan guaranteed themselves some awkward dressing room moments when they return to domestic action.

Before a ball had even been kicked in Qatar, Doan had warned that Japan have "a lot of good players with potential and a big chance of reaching the knockout stages."

If Nico Schlotterbeck and his German teammates weren't aware of that from the Bundesliga, they certainly will be now.

Edited by Matt Ford