Despite being 58 years old, Kazuyoshi Miura continues to enjoy playing soccer at the professional level // Photo: shutterstock.com
Kazuyoshi Miura, nicknamed “King Kazu”, currently plays for Atletico Suzuka, a club that plays in the JFL, Japan’s fourth highest status league. In his professional career, which began in 1986 in Brazil, his current club is his 16th. This year, he came on as a substitute in a JFL match and broke his own record as the oldest player to ever play in a league match. Notably, the veteran footballer plays in the striker position – the most energy-intensive position on the pitch.
Despite his age, Miura refuses a coaching position, saying, “As long as my legs are obeying, I will be on the field.” According to the 58-year-old, the secret to his soccer longevity lies in his mentality. “I do not play for records, but only for the reason that soccer is my language,” he says. The oldest soccer player in the world has a dream – to play on the field until he is 80 years old, and not in amateur, but in professional status.
The beginning of his soccer career was not promising for Kazuyoshi Miura. At the age of 15 he traveled to Brazil, where he found himself in the location of the academy “Juventus da Mooca”, where, he admits, he regularly received racist insults against him and was robbed. After some time he proved himself at a semi-professional tournament and received an offer to join the legendary club Santos, but failed to establish himself in the squad and terminated his contract after only two matches.
His next club was “Coritiba”, in which Miura played in 21 matches, scored two goals and won the Liga Paranaense (among clubs from the Brazilian state of Parana). A year later, the young Japanese footballer again received an offer from “Santos”, for which he played in 11 matches and scored three goals.
After that Kazuyoshi Miura decided to accept an offer from Japanese club Verdy Kawasaki and return to his homeland. For four years of performances in the first in his career Japanese club footballer scored 45 goals and was recognized by fans. Miura’s sporting career went sharply uphill, which, in particular, was confirmed by awarding him the prize as the best footballer in Asia in 1993.
For almost 40 years of his professional career Kazuyoshi Miura played in the championships of Brazil (“Santos”, “Coritiba”, “Palmeiras”), Italy (“Genoa”), Croatia (“Dinamo Zagreb”), Australia (FC “Sydney”), Japan (“Verdy Kawasaki”, “Vissel Kobe”, “Yokohama”, “Kyoto Sanga” and others). And at the age of 55 even signed a short-term contract with Portuguese club “Oliveirense”, for which he played 39 minutes in six matches (average 6.5 minutes per match). The footballer is the winner of 18 club trophies. Along with Kunishige Kamamoto and Shinji Okazaki, Miura is the author of more than 50 goals for the Japanese national team, on his account – 55 goals in 89 matches. As a member of the national team, he won the Asian Championship in 1992.
Miura’s interests are not limited to soccer. At the age of 45, he made his debut for the national futsal team in a 3-3 draw against Brazil. He scored his first goal in his second match, in which Japan defeated Ukraine 3-1. At the 2012 Futsal World Cup, he played in all four matches of his national team, but did not score.
