On October 6, it was widely rumored in Japanese soccer circles that Takeshi Okada, vice-president of the Football Association, recently accepted an exclusive interview with Nikkan Sports to talk about his coaching career in Chinese soccer. Takeshi Okada was the head coach of Chinese Super League side Hangzhou Greentown (now renamed Zhejiang) from 2011 to 2013, and although he left for family reasons, the cooperation between the two teams in the field of youth training continues to this day.
Below are selected quotes from the interview with Takeshi Okada:
I am passionate about taking on new challenges, and once I decide to do so, I go all out, and I chose to coach in China because I was looking for a new and interesting challenge. After leading Japan to the World Cup twice and winning the J-League, I was thinking about what to do next when the opportunity to coach in China came up. I didn't come to China just to promote Japanese soccer, but I really found the challenge appealing, and I knew about the development in China and was eager to experience it.
I remember in the fall of 2011, Cai Zhenhua, the vice director of the General Administration of Sport of China, led a delegation to Japan, and I was received as a representative of the Japanese side, and he asked me if I had any desire to come to China to coach, and I said yes on the spot. He asked me if I would like to come to China to coach, and I said yes right away. The delegation then notified the clubs by email, and I remember that six teams in the Chinese Super League and Chinese League One were interested in inviting me, but only Hangzhou Greentown made a formal invitation. The moment I received the invitation, I drew a blueprint in my mind: I hoped to make more friends through soccer, to cross borders and cultural differences, and to make some substantial contributions to both countries.
In the end, I decided to accept the invitation to go to China. In a country with more than 50 nationalities and a predominantly "people-oriented society," I still adhered to the same principle I had used when I coached the Japanese national team: "No decisions are made for personal reasons, only to lead the team to victory." However, I have made some adjustments to this principle in order to adapt to the customs and social conditions in China. In addition, when I traveled to China to coach, the late Kazuo Inamori, a famous Japanese industrialist, gave me the advice, "Just continue to use what you used to coach in Japan here."
In the end, I followed my own coaching style in Japan at Hangzhou Greentown, and as soon as I arrived at the team I told the players, "I trust you, and I will treat you like I treated the Japanese players in Japan." The Chinese coaching staff had a few words to say: "Even if you trust the Chinese players...". , but I still choose to trust the players. For me, one mistake doesn't matter, but I will never allow the same mistake to happen again. I remember one time when we arrived at the hotel before an away game, but almost all the players went out after checking in.
During my tenure at Greentown, some players were released from their contracts by me for twice violating the team rules I had set, and those who relied on connections to get to the top were also discarded by me. Previously, the team's senior management had tried to interfere with my hiring decisions, and I was once ready to resign to confront them. At that time, I had no personal agenda and only wanted to make Greentown a winning team.
In retrospect, coaching in China has not been a smooth journey. During these two years, I did my best to fulfill part of the job, although I was prepared to suffer from the beginning. Despite the difficulties of coaching in China, the experience was undoubtedly rewarding.
