Japan announced Hajime Moriyasu as national team head coach on Thursday amid reports that Arsene Wenger could still play an advisory role in the development of the game in the country.
Before his 22 years at Arsenal, Wenger spent 18 successful months in Japan as coach of Nagoya Grampus from 1995 to 1996, a period that has produced a lasting mutual affection between the Frenchman and the country’s football fans and administrators.
The 68 year-old, who left the London club in May, was linked with the national team job before the Japan Football Association (JFA) decided to appoint a domestic coach to succeed Akira Nishino, who is stepping down after leading the Samurai Blue to the round of 16 at the 2018 World Cup.
Moriyasu, an assistant to Nishino in Russia, is ready to introduce a stronger connection between the various national teams. He becomes the first Japan coach since Philippe Troussier in 2000 to take simultaneous charge of the senior and Olympic teams as he started preparation for the 2020 Tokyo games last year.
With the post-Russia international retirement of star attacker Keisuke Honda and captain Makoto Hasebe, there will be some opportunities for new faces for Japanese prospects.
In a statement Moriyasu said, “There will be generational changes. There will be integration of various generations of players.”
The 49-year-old led Sanfrecce Hiroshima to three J-League titles in the space of five years from 2012 to 2017. Moriyasu’s first challenge with the senior team will be the 2019 Asian Cup in January.
According to Sports Nippon newspaper, the JFA could still offer Wenger the post of technical director or even a more unofficial advisory role.
According to JFA president Kozo Tashima, “I met Wenger during the World Cup in Russia, He is taking a break from football but we talked about Japanese football.”
Wenger’s management skills at Strasbourg impressed many French coaches, and he moved to Ligue 2 club Cannes in 1983, where he became Jean-Marc Guillou’s assistant. Earning a steady wage of £300 per week, he was responsible for collecting information about opposition teams, and instilled discipline in the players through training sessions. Wenger’s commitment to football was well documented; when asked what the young coach did during his spare time, general manager Richard Conte replied: “Videos, videos, videos.
He was always watching videos of his opponents, of his own team. It didn’t matter what time of night.” Cannes failed to win promotion to Ligue 1, but they reached the quarter-finals of the Coupe de France. Wenger’s work in raising the standard of the squad did not go unnoticed, and in 1984, he accepted Aldo Platini’s offer to become manager of Nancy.
The challenge of sustaining Nancy as a Ligue 1 club was difficult as Wenger inherited a squad of sub-standard quality and he was given limited money to spend. He nevertheless relished the prospect of conducting business in the transfer market, and enjoyed freedom to trial theories he read about. In his first season at Nancy, Wenger hired a dietician to explain the benefits of healthy eating and made it imperative that players did not snack before games. He took the squad away from their usual summer training camp to Val Thorens, so that the players could acclimatise to the high-altitude. Platini attested the move to their strong league startsFrom a managerial perspective, Wenger struggled to keep his emotions in check; losing made him “physically sick”, to the point where he once stopped the team bus to vomit after a game.
Wenger guided the club to a respectable 12th-place finish, all the more surprising given he constantly tinkered his team.
Players were moved out of their favoured positions, which for some maximised their potential.
Éric Bertrand, a striker signed from the lower divisions, was converted into a fullback, and by the end of Wenger’s time at Nancy, Éric Di Meco switched from a left winger to wing back.