Q. You have been appointed director of the environmental action office of the Japan Football Association (JFA). Could you explain the association’s efforts, and why it’s focusing on environmental issues.
JFA has launched an environment project that will carry out activities and release information under the slogan "From the Most Loved Sport on the Earth to the Sport that Loves the Earth Most." Playing football is itself an environmental activity, in the sense that through sport you can learn a zest for life and adaptability to environmental change. We also aim to contribute to the reduction of the environmental load by running an awareness campaign, making good use of our wide network.
There are football associations around the world. The number of participating countries in the Fédération Internationale de Football Associations (FIFA) is greater than that of the United Nations, and the information it releases has a very broad reach. So if FIFA hears about JFA’s environmental work, this work could spread around the globe. From this point of view, I also believe that football is an effective tool for running an awareness campaign.
As part of our efforts, we are running the Clean Supporter campaign to encourage fans to collect and separate garbage after games, and to use public transportation to come to the stadium. In addition, we are looking at including an environmental class for training football coaches, and at holding a wide variety of eco matches. There is so much we can do to contribute to environmental issues through football.
People ask why a football association has to conduct environmental activities, but I think that the time for questioning has passed. It is said that now is not the era of corporate social responsibility but the era of social responsibility. That is, all individuals, as well as corporations, are expected to make social contributions. No matter how successful a business becomes, that success will be meaningless if the Earth breaks down. So I think that we must develop a society in which everyone sees it as natural to take environmental action. If I am asked why a soccer association promotes the environmental movement, my answer is that it is because there is no more effective tool than football to spread the movement. However, I personally think that asking why is nonsense, and doing something for our environment is our duty as global citizens. Q. I think there are many people who are too pre-occupied with their daily lives to pay attention to environmental issues. Is there anything you always remind yourself in order to continue your activities? The key is not to try too hard. If you look back at the history of humans, you will notice that anything that forces people to have patience has never lasted. For instance, when I drive a car, I’m sometimes asked why I’m driving a car as I tell people to treasure the environment. But when I take the train, I’m often approached by people, and that can bother other passengers. So I tend to drive a car instead to avoid the situation. When someone criticizes me for it, I don’t hesitate to say, "I have no choice." Once you start down that line of argument, the best thing for the environment would be no humans on the planet. This puts the cart before the horse, so my stance is that I do what I can. At home, I tell my family not to leave the electricity on wastefully, and I turn it off whenever I notice it. I think that it is important to keep doing what you can, and what you notice, without pushing yourself.
Q. Every successful space mission needs good project management. When you were the coach of the Japanese national football team, what did you focus on in terms of managing the team to ensure good performance.
Of course everyone on the team wants to play well and win the game. But when everyone around the players is offering opinions and criticisms, they tend to try to protect themselves before thinking of the team. I think the manager’s most important challenge is to generate the players’ desire for victory, not individually but as a team, channeling that desire in one direction. I think that this is management.
I also think that having a moderate amount of tension is important for team management. I never scolded or criticized players in front of the media, but praised them. At the same time, though, I always tried to make sure the players would feel, "When push comes to shove, the old man is unpredictable," or "The old man is a tough character."
For instance, when a player has something to say to me, I of course listen, and take it in if I think that he has a point. But when I cannot agree, I say, "As the coach, I take full responsibility for my decisions. If you cannot accept these decisions, I’m afraid I have to let you go." I don’t get angry, but I leave the decision to him. If all I did was hug the players and ask them to follow me, I think that sense of tension would be lost.
It is a leader’s job to inspire, and to generate motivation for improvement. But instead of giving them freedom, it is important to lead players with a sense of tension, so that the players won’t get out of control. This is not very easy to do, but I always made sure to set a certain boundary, to maintain a sense of tension between the players and myself.
Q. There must be so much pressure on a coach. How did you handle it?
I believe that pressure helps me grow, so I didn’t do anything special. If we didn’t have to struggle against gravity, our bones and muscles would weaken, and pressure is just like that. But it took time for me to be able to see it that way.
I was appointed coach of the Japanese national football team for the 1998 FIFA World Cup in France. Feeling that the future of Japanese football depended on me, I even told my family that I may not be able to continue to live in Japan if the team lost. But one day it occurred to me that, if the result wasn’t good even after I did my utmost to the point that it would almost kill me, it would not be my responsibility but that of the people who appointed me. I completely shrugged off the pressure, thinking that it would be their fault to have chosen me when I was not good enough. I have since become much more fearless.
I went through tough times, because people would say whatever they wanted about me, but those experiences have made me tougher. Now when I face pressure, I see it as a chance to raise my game even higher.
Q. Managing the team, did you always make your ideas and opinions clear to the players?
I always laid out my ideas clearly, because without a coach’s a clear vision it is impossible to build a team. However, just following my vision is not enough. Even if you are instructed to play a certain way and be in a certain position, you still have to make the right moves by reading the situation and reacting to the movement of the opponents. It is essential to develop a team of players who can make their own judgments, taking responsibility for the risk. In general, Japanese people are known to be not good at making their own decisions, but they can do it if they try. The Japanese national team proved it in the last FIFA World Cup. Q. You say that you encourage your players to think, but in reality a game progresses very fast. Do you mean that they are moving intuitively? That’s right. I tell players not to think with their head because they must use intuition to be able to move according to their senses. The brain has the neocortex and the paleocortex; the neocortex is responsible for logical thinking and calculation, and the paleocortex is responsible for intuition. For example, when you play catch, you’re not thinking, "A ball is approaching. Stretch the elbow and open the fingers. Close the glove when it catches the ball."
Likewise, in football, the moment you start thinking about whether you should pass or dribble when you have the ball, you won’t have a good game. So you must learn to move by intuition - using the paleocortex, not the neocortex. How I can get players to use their intuition - this was a big key for me.
I started to see the answer around the World Cup qualifiers. Giving players detailed instructions is no good. For example, I can give an instruction in the middle of the game to make a simple pass, but I will not say that they cannot dribble instead. And in the video we watch together after the game, I insert a scene of some player’s good dribbling, and I just make one remark, "Oh, this is a great dribble." This way they learn that it may not have to be a pass but a dribble in that kind of situation. This is just an example, but anyway I focused on having players use the paleocortex so they could move automatically.
