Advertisement

King Kazu’s astonishing longevity and a new move to Portugal

Barry Glendenning
·4-min read

BACK TO THE DAYS OF MR BLOBBY

Way back in 1993, while playing out his twilight years with Nagoya Grampus Eight in Japan, Gary Lineker was beaten to the inaugural J-League Most Valuable Player award by a 26-year-old striker named Kazuyoshi Miura. Banging them in for Grampus Eight’s rivals Verdy Kawasaki, “King Kazu” was six years Lineker’s junior at the time, a state of mathematical affairs you’ll be unsurprised to learn hasn’t changed in the intervening 30 years. But while Lineker has long since hung up his boots to forge an extremely successful career as a savoury snack shill, pun-slinging BBC presenter, successful producer of those niche aural innovations called “podcasts” and voluntary woke, leftie snowflake who grinds the gears of gammons on Social Media Disgrace Twitter, Kazu has kept raging against the dying of the light in his Japanese lantern and still remains a professional player as he approaches his 56th birthday.

In 2005, a full 12 years after winning his MVP award, Kazu joined Yokohama, the 13th club in a career that had already taken in top-flight stints in Brazil, Japan, Croatia and Italy. Still on their books 18 years later, he has just been farmed out on his third loan spell and will conclude his 38th season in professional football with Portuguese second division side Oliveirense. “Even though this is a new place for me, I’ll work hard to show everyone the kind of play I’m known for,” coo-cooed Kazu, who won the most recent of his 89 Japan caps 23 years ago.

And while you could be forgiven for presuming his astonishing longevity in the professional ranks is down to him being some sort of freak of nature, he puts it down to a healthy lifestyle that includes 5am rises, a strict diet, regular ice baths and lots of other unpleasantness your Football Daily couldn’t even begin to countenance. Kazu is also reported to check his own weight and body fat up to five times a day, as you do, just to make sure he isn’t letting himself go to seed.

Considering his status as a veteran striker with 259 club and international goals to his name, it is perhaps surprising that Kazu did not find himself the target of a late deadline-day swoop by Everton in their unseemly, frantic and ultimately fruitless search for somebody more prolific than Neal Maupay and Dominic Calvert-Lewin. Still, the Goodison Park outfit remain hopeful of signing the comparatively sprightly free agent André Ayew who, at the tender age of 33, is more than two decades younger than his far more prolific Japanese counterpart.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“The tricks are just random things that grab my attention and if it looks achievable then I want to do it and learn a skill. It’s fun to be able to wow someone quickly” –Fulham and USA! USA!! USA!!! full-back Antonee Robinson, the man they call “Jedi”, talks to Donald McRae about magic and a hug that went viral.

Antonee Robinson
Jedi by name … Photograph: David Levene/The Guardian

FOOTBALL DAILY LETTERS

“In recounting the football glory of Everton and Newcastle (yesterday’s Football Daily), you missed the Toffees’ glorious triumph in the prestigious Florida Cup back in 2021. Yes the truly magical Florida Cup. Few footballing giants of Europe have that one in their trophy case. I’m afraid, given their lack of activity in the transfer market, it will be decades before Everton fly that high again” – Steve Mintz.

“Playing Sunday football with legends (Football Daily letters passim). After moving down to ‘That London’ after university and trying to find a team, I randomly played for ‘English Heritage FC’ in a friendly league. One Sunday morning the opposition left-back was Brian Glanville, not exactly a rock legend but ‘the doyen of football writers’. He must have been in his 60s at the time and thankfully didn’t have to write about the meagre fare on offer” – Lee McDonagh.

“Congratulations to D1ck Mably (yesterday’s letters) for references to both Sunday amateur football and faded 1980s pop stars. I trust that Owen Paul bothered opposition defences more than he bothered the charts, but perhaps he was better known for time wasting” – Iain Plummer.

Send your letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. Today’s winner of our prizeless letter o’ the day is … Iain Plummer.