Tokyo sports reporter Dan Orlowitz discusses Brighton and Hove Albion and all things Kaoru Mitoma ahead of the pre-season fixtures against Kashima Antlers and Tokyo Verdy in July at the Tokyo National Stadium.
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00:00 Thank you very much for joining us today. We're joined by Dan Ulowitz, who's a Tokyo-based
00:08 sports journalist and will be commenting on Brighton's two friendlies that they've just
00:13 arranged in Tokyo ahead of the next Premier League season, where they'll be up against
00:19 J1 league sides Kashima Antlers on Wednesday 24th July before facing Tokyo Verde on Sunday
00:27 28th July. Both games will be at the 68,000 capacity National Stadium in Tokyo. So Dan,
00:36 thanks very much for joining us. What can Brighton fans expect from their first ever
00:42 trip to Japan and from Tokyo?
00:45 Darren, thanks for having me on. It's going to be, I should hope, a very enjoyable experience
00:54 for any Brighton fans who are making the trip. The club certainly has a lot of fans in Japan
01:00 and in Asia. Obviously, there's a lot of English and British expats who live here, live and
01:08 work here for whatever reason, and quite a number who are very attached to Brighton.
01:13 And I know quite a few who have gotten a lot of recognition. They say they're from Brighton,
01:20 and they go, "Oh, Mitama." So it really does show how much of an impact Mitama has made
01:27 at the club and in Japan in terms of raising the club's recognition. They're going to be
01:33 friendlies, so obviously the level of play, it's the middle of the summer. Japanese summers
01:42 get very hot, very humid, so anyone who's making the trip, I will say, be cautious and
01:48 be aware of that. But the fans are second to none. The National Stadium is magnificent
01:55 when it's packed, which hopefully the organisers will be putting a lot of work into over these
02:01 next two months or so. And it'll be eye-opening, I think, for anyone who comes over, and I
02:08 think they're going to get a chance to see how big Brighton's fandom in Japan has grown
02:13 over these last two years, really.
02:16 Yeah, yeah. It's going to be a great experience for the fans, by the sounds of it. Can you
02:22 give us a feel for Mitama's profile in Japan? How popular is he? Obviously he's a key player
02:28 for the national team. You get the feeling there's so many more Japanese fans around
02:36 the Amex Stadium now when you go to the match days. Does that correspond in Tokyo as well?
02:42 Is he quite big over there?
02:44 Absolutely. I believe Brighton - it's been about a year since Brighton opened their official
02:50 Japanese language Twitter account, if you will, and they have 86 or so thousand followers.
02:59 One of the top European clubs in Japan in terms of social media presences. He's put
03:09 the club on the map, and definitely a star for the national team. A star as far as the
03:17 J League is concerned, even though he only played in the J League for a season and a
03:21 half and that was during the pandemic. I always like to say, one of the great tragedies of
03:30 the pandemic in terms of football here was that so few fans got to see him play in the
03:36 stadium because obviously attendances were capped at 5,000 for most of the 2020 season.
03:42 I consider myself very fortunate to have gotten to watch him grow and evolve into the player
03:48 that you see today. Arguably he was very much robbed of the MVP award that season. Just
03:55 a massive player for both club and country these days. Certainly in a national team that
04:05 hasn't quite settled on who the star is, he is one of the candidates. His exploits
04:11 at the World Cup, it goes without saying, are massive. That one millimeter made all
04:16 the difference against Spain. As you've seen around the Amex Stadium, he's bringing fans
04:25 out and that's not a cheap trip these days considering how weak the yen is. You have
04:30 to be very dedicated to make that journey and certainly he inspires that in fans here.
04:36 Yeah, he's absolutely, when he's on his form, obviously he's sustained this lower
04:43 back injury in the last stages of the season. But prior to that, he's absolutely electric.
04:50 He's one of the few players that you can say when he gets the ball, the whole crowd,
04:55 they're anticipating. He's one of those players that get the crowd on their feet.
05:02 To do that at the highest level in the Premier League, was that potential evident when he
05:06 was at Kawasaki Fontale?
05:09 Absolutely. He came as a rookie into that 2020 squad and even just coming off the bench
05:17 as a super sub essentially, Kawasaki, that 2020 Kawasaki squad was arguably one of the
05:27 strongest top to bottom that the league has ever seen just in terms of the quality that
05:32 they had at the depth that they had. And even in a squad that good, he stood out. Whenever
05:39 he got the ball, you knew that he was capable of doing something incredible, not just scoring
05:43 goals but also key passes, making assists, setting up chances. And you knew that it was
05:50 never a question of if Europe, but it was a question of when Europe. And it was honestly
05:55 no surprise that he's ascended to this level.
05:58 Yeah. And how is it on the news now? Are his games covered on the news, on the mainstream
06:07 media in Japan?
06:09 Yes. Anytime a Japanese player does anything in the Premier League, you see it in the headlines,
06:16 in the little, the info displays on the trains where they'll show sort of the highlights,
06:22 not the highlights, but photos and sort of headlines from whatever happened over the
06:26 weekend. And of course, if Mitoma plays, you're going to see him at some point, very prominent
06:32 in advertising related to the national team. Of course, Brighton is becoming more of a
06:39 draw for sponsors here as well. And he's out there, certainly one of the most visible Japanese
06:45 players today.
06:46 Yeah, yeah. Well, hopefully he's fit in time. He mentioned that he is working towards being
06:54 fit for the new season with the eye, definitely playing these two games against Kashima Antlers
07:01 and Tokyo Verde. What can they expect to face against these teams, Dan? What sort of tests
07:10 are Brighton going to get against them?
07:13 So the Kashima game is going to be probably the tougher of the two friendlies. They're
07:20 very much sort of, I hesitate to say rebound because they did fairly well last season,
07:26 but they're under Renko Popovich this year, the new manager, and he's got them in third
07:31 place. Very, very tough. Yeah, just a very tough squad. The most accomplished in Japanese
07:43 football. They've won the most titles, and I'm talking about both major titles, domestically
07:50 and if you include their ACL triumph in 2018. I expect you've got players in there like
08:00 especially Yuma Suzuki, who for a while was one of Japan's brightest talents at striker,
08:07 and he had some personality conflicts that kept him from the national team, which is
08:12 sort of a shame because he's been one of the best strikers that Japan has produced in the
08:16 last decade.
08:18 Verity are the interesting choice. They are newly promoted this season. An original 10
08:26 club like Kashima, one of the co-founders of the J League, but they've been in the second
08:30 division since the end of the 2018 season. So for them to land this friendly, I think
08:37 that the league is, I shouldn't say the league because they're not organizing this game,
08:41 but the sponsors are maybe banking on some nostalgia there.
08:47 Playing wise, Verity are actually doing a pretty good job this season of returning to
08:52 the J1 and they're holding their own. They have a flair for the dramatic so far this
08:59 season. I believe 10 or 11 of their games and they're 15 games in, 10 or 11 of their
09:07 results have been determined in the last five minutes of play.
09:10 Oh really? Yeah.
09:11 Basically from the 85th minute on, they've had a total of 14 goals scored.
09:16 Oh wow.
09:17 I mean, and both for and against. So never a dull moment. Never a dull moment. Only three
09:24 wins so far, which is the problem, but only three losses, just nine draws and they've
09:29 all been just the most thrilling games you can imagine. So I don't know. I don't know
09:34 if this game is going to be like that, but it'll be interesting. And like I said, when
09:39 the national stadium, it does have the track. It's not the best stadium that Japan has to
09:45 offer, but when it's packed, it is an incredible atmosphere.
09:50 We saw that last year with the Bayern and Manchester City friendlies. And you would
09:56 hope that, especially with the draw of Mitoma, there's going to be a lot of fans who are
10:00 going to come out to see that. And it will be an interesting mix.
10:03 Yeah. Yeah. Why do you think they didn't have a friendly against his former team, Kawasaki
10:08 frontail? That would have been a nice one, wouldn't it?
10:13 Yeah, it would have been. And to be honest, the number of European clubs we have coming
10:19 to Japan this year who aren't playing the match that we sort of predicted is pretty
10:25 high. You have Tottenham coming, but they are playing Vissel Kobe, who won the J-1 last
10:33 year, rather than Andrzej Postakoglou's former team, Yokohama F. Marinos. You have now Brighton
10:39 coming and not playing Kawasaki. Stuttgart are coming and of course Genki Harajukuchi
10:48 is leaving, but Hiroki Ito isn't going to be facing off against J-Bil Iwata. So a lot
10:55 of weird matchmaking happening here. I think that sort of comes down to who the sponsors
11:01 are, who is organizing these games. The J-League is doing some but not all. And also how clubs
11:09 are prioritizing their summer breaks. And you do have to look at Kawasaki's, you know,
11:18 from the sort of load-bearing perspective, they will have the Asian Champions League
11:22 to contest from September. So maybe they've made it, maybe their club ultimately made
11:29 the decision to take that time to help their players recover. But to my knowledge, they
11:36 were in the running for this game. So it was somewhat of a surprise to see that they didn't
11:41 land it. And I'm sure Kawasaki's fans will be very disappointed that they didn't land
11:46 it.
11:47 Yeah, yeah. Well, no, it would have been a great story to have Matoma going back there.
11:51 But there's this sort of perception that Brighton seemed to pluck him from out of nowhere. But
11:56 obviously he was doing great things for Kawasaki at the time. Are there any other players that
12:03 you think in the Japanese league that you think could be ready to make that next step
12:09 that perhaps even Brighton should be keeping their eye on?
12:12 I mean, there's always J-Leaguers who are on the verge of a big move. I think that the
12:19 time of Japanese players being sort of these diamonds in the rough that nobody saw coming,
12:26 that's sort of over. You look at how there's always every offseason, you have five to 10
12:33 Japanese players who are going to Europe, they're going to Belgium, they're going to
12:38 Portugal, they're going to all sorts of clubs and signing on and making an impact and then
12:44 moving on to bigger clubs. The biggest surprise of this summer friendly season is that FC
12:52 Tokyo don't have anyone lined up as the biggest club in the capital and a club that is capable
13:00 of drawing a very large crowd and a club that's featuring a lot of national team and Olympic
13:09 team players. Maybe that's one reason why it didn't work out because a number of their
13:13 players including Kuriyama, goalkeeper, or Kuriyama is a midfielder, but Brandon Taishino
13:20 is the goalkeeper, Kashiyeth Bangnagande a defender, they're all potentially going to
13:27 be playing in Paris at the Olympics. So maybe that's sort of why it didn't work out is that
13:31 Tokyo aren't expecting to have that star power available for these games. But you turn on
13:39 any J-League game and there's someone you should be paying attention to. I think that's
13:45 the strength that this league has is that it's producing so many young talented players
13:51 who are ready for Europe, maybe not the Premier League immediately, but you watch some of
13:58 these players and within a year or two you're going to see them in action. And as I've told
14:05 other outlets before, the World Cup is in two years and I think it's very possible that
14:12 Japan will field a squad of all Europe-based players. I think that's the depth that the
14:20 player pool has right now.
14:21 Mattoma is certainly leading the way and hopefully he can get recovery time to play a big part
14:31 in these games coming up. But away from the football, Dan, what should Brighton fans say
14:36 if they're heading to the football then after the game? Is there any sort of parts of the
14:41 city that they should perhaps look around?
14:44 Oh, I mean, it's all good. I think that, especially these days, we're experiencing a tourism boom,
14:56 the likes of which Japan has not experienced until now. Even in the pre-pandemic peak of
15:03 2019, the National Stadium is basically a five-minute train ride from Shinjuku, which
15:11 is one of the big nightlife and entertainment districts. Saying, "Well, where should you
15:20 go in Tokyo?" is like saying, "Where should you go in London or New York City?" It is
15:28 not just a city. It is in fact designated a metropolis by the government. You go to
15:34 Tokyo Tower or Skytree and you look out and just all the light touches is Tokyo. I think
15:42 that the fans who make the trip, I hope that they'll discover some gems of their own. I'm
15:48 sure that they're going to... I'll be seeing some blue and white stripes in July. I would
15:57 say the biggest suggestion I can say is just be respectful of the local customs, be adventurous,
16:06 be curious. Don't be afraid to go off the beaten path and go into a restaurant that
16:12 doesn't have English signage. You're going to find the best meals of your life. You're
16:18 going to find amazing culture and history and beauty. Go outside Tokyo. You've got three
16:28 or four days between those friendlies. Go out. Experience all Japan has to offer. Yeah,
16:34 get out there.
16:35 Yeah. No, it's going to be a great experience. I was pleased when it came through because
16:39 there was so much talk that it might happen. Then once the confirmation came through, it's
16:46 the fans that can afford to travel over there. I think they're going to have a great experience
16:52 in Tokyo and watching some good football as well. Thanks again for joining us, Dan. That
17:00 was some great insight. Yeah, we look forward to the games over there.
17:06 Yeah, absolutely. Can't wait. Hopefully you'll be making it out. I look forward to meeting
17:13 all the Brighton media at the National Stadium.
17:16 That would be great.