Japan’s emergence as a world soccer power an amazing feat

The numbers were that of folly: Japan played the United States in a women’s soccer tuneup to the 1999 World Cup, a match in which the Americans won 9-0 and outshot their opponent 35-0, in which the U.S. had a 19-0 edge in corner kicks and star forward Mia Hamm didn’t score.

It would be like the New England Patriots winning 72-0 with Jimmy Garoppolo at quarterback.

Three days later, the teams played again.

The U.S. won 7-0, but the Japanese managed four shots.

That would be like the Patriots winning 63-7.

Twelve years later, one of the greatest turnarounds in sports history that few neither recognized nor embraced played out on a pitch in Frankfurt, Germany, when Japan defeated the U.S. on penalty kicks in a Women’s World Cup final.

Today, before what should be a heavy pro-American gathering in Vancouver, British Columbia, the nations meet again for the right to hold aloft that silver- and gold-plated FIFA trophy, the continuation of a remarkable story about how a country that had little infrastructure for building a women’s soccer power and even less interest in doing so has emerged as one.

Even now, as Japan sits one victory from claiming a second straight World Cup title, participation rates across the land of high rises and imperial palaces and mountainous national parks and thousands of shrines and temples pale in comparison to others.

Japan had 39,000 registered female players in 2011, when it shocked the soccer world.

That same year, America had almost 2 million registered female players.

Lisbon is the 9-year-old daughter of a close friend and a wonderful club player from California. She spends part of her summer in Japan attending school, and recently asked all female students how many ever played soccer. One raised her hand. Even now, the game is regionalized and not popular among females in many parts of the country.

Girls swim more there. They compete in gymnastics more.

Before that World Cup final in 2011, Japan had never beaten the U.S. in 24 tries. Ever.

During that World Cup, Japan had no player taller than 5 feet 4 inches and the U.S. none shorter than 5-5.

How did the Japanese do it?

They had in the decade leading up to the moment embraced the notion that there is more than one way to skin a cat.

They built a soccer culture exactly opposite of the world’s greatest team.

They chose a very un-American style.

It was during pregame warmups to that 2011 final when the crowd in Germany and a worldwide TV audience was treated to a video that showed young Japanese girls scrimmaging 5-vs.-5 on a dirt field with mini goals. This is where foot skills were developed, where few true bounces were created amid small rocks and other earthly impediments, much as how male stars from Brazil learned the game within favelas and Africans by kicking a rag ball barefoot.

There was also this on the video: no coaches.

Japanese girls were allowed to learn and think the game on their own, far from the U.S. practice of joy sticking, a term to describe overzealous adults roaming the sidelines of youth matches screaming before every pass, every kick, every throw-in, every movement. The voice inside a Japanese player’s head during a match is that of her own, not some overbearing club coach whose salary is often decided on whether a team wins or loses.

Consider: In 2012, the U.S. national team went to Japan for a tour of friendlies, and one day visited a school. The Americans began an informal pickup game and yet struggled gaining possession of the ball from a group of Japanese teenage girls.

The locals, none of whom were near the level of their national team, were that good technically.

“Japan is all about possession,” U.S. midfielder Carli Lloyd said at the time. “In the United States, we play too big a side. We’ll play 8-vs.-8 and 11-vs.-11, and you go a long time without touching the ball. (Kids) need to be engaged. They need to be always switched on, always touching the ball, always aware of where their next pass is.”

Japan played with great passion that historic day in 2011, a vision of grace and skill and mostly pride, its souls touched deeply by images of the earthquake and tsunami that struck the nation’s northeastern coast months earlier and killing 15,000.

This is not that team today. Japan seems to be lacking the spark it had four years ago. It again will be smaller than the U.S., not as athletic or fit as the Americans, again hoping that defending the ball with two and three players at a time and hopefully possessing a scoreless game into the 75th minute or so just might produce another monumental upset.

Soccer is not about creating 50 shots, but rather about creating one good chance. Japan, more than anyone else, understands this.

If we as a country were committed to developing great tactical players, America would never lose in women’s soccer. Most matches would be similar to that 9-0 thrashing of Japan in 1999. It would be like Ohio State football against a local junior college. It would be that one-sided.

But we are instead obsessed with winning, our greatest Achilles heel when it comes to all that is wrong with youth soccer in the United States, and for this we have allowed other nations with nowhere near our resources or participation numbers to compete with and often defeat us.

Whether that happens again today isn’t yet known, but how Japan built its national team remains one of the sport’s most treasured tales. The team is referred to as Nadeshiko, a floral metaphor meaning pure, feminine beauty.

Which is how it plays.

Graceful, tactical, a style born from 5-vs.-5 on dirt fields with mini goals at which to shoot.

Small in stature, giants in purpose.

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ed Graney can be reached at egraney@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4618. He can be a heard on “Seat and Ed” on Fox Sports 1340 from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. Follow him on Twitter: @edgraney.