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The story
On August 20, 2026, Brighton announced squad numbers for the new season, and Kaoru Mitoma’s new number drew comments like “absolutely badass” and “I want that jersey so bad.” The thread also touched on regret over Solly March’s departure, the possibility of Takefusa Kubo moving abroad, and comparisons with Lee Kang-in’s new number.
Soccer Digest Web Editorial Team
August 21, 2026
Brighton, the club Kaoru Mitoma plays for, announced its squad numbers for the new season on August 20.
Source: soccerdigestweb.com / Original article here
What people said
I love it when a guy changes numbers all the time depending on the situation, like Zidane.
I'm not a Kashima fan, but I do like how 40 became a special number there.
Cristiano should've just kept number 9 at Real Madrid too.
Terrestrial TV ratings (Kanto region)
NHK — 108th National High School Baseball Championship, Shimane vs. Nagasaki: 5.1%
Fuji TV — J.League Opening Commemorative Match, Yokohama F. Marinos vs. Kashima Antlers: 2.5%
This is reality.
No point cherry-picking the number from 3 minutes into the broadcast and spinning it like that.
Funny how you're pretending it never got close to 5% by the time the match ended.
It's absolutely no problem if you don't watch.
Go right ahead.
Do whatever you want, man.
There was a time I thought he'd get capped for England.
Before the injury, the way he'd relentlessly cut inside and get the job done was so cool.
Also bugs me that they phrased it as "departed" rather than "transferred."
Kubo's already 25, though…
He'd need a really strong league season to have a shot — double-digit goals at minimum.
Big clubs already have 16-year-old wingers on their books; there's such a glut of winger talent that no big club needs to buy one.
The Premier League's been picking up Japanese players lately, so a mid-table or lower Prem side is plausible, but a cash-strapped Spanish club like Sociedad won't sell him.
So in the end he's locked up at Sociedad, run out his contract there, and by the time he's a free transfer his prime is over — he ends up somewhere like Betis. That's how it goes.
There's zero real demand for him, no matter how much the web news makes it look like there is.
He'll never get back to his pre-injury form.
Yeah, that's how it is.
It's sad.
For some reason nobody brings it up, but he might be the best soccer player Japan's ever produced.
Fine, then you're stuck wearing number 931 forever.
There's no team in the Premier League that lets you get away with only attacking.
Actually his best season was year three.
Baseball, where nobody even talks about squad numbers — nobody has a clue what number Murakami wears.
Baseball gets talked about through stats.
You guys have nothing else, so all you can do is talk about squad numbers.
He's hitting at a faster pace than he did in NPB — so much for MLB being the higher level, huh?
Unlike baseball, it's not an individual sport.
that's true of pretty much every Japanese player, and it makes me sad.
There have been plenty in the past, and there's still one at Liverpool right now.
Such a waste.
If he'd shone at the World Cup, he might've had a shot.
http://youtu.be/zfVfIZd-vMs?t=346&si=GXWTbbl8dvk9ZkoX
A wonder goal on his Atlético Madrid debut.
Mitoma also scored on opening day back in 2025, come to think of it.
Málaga finished 4th in the Segunda División last season — a team about on par with Japan's J2.
Background and Key Points
Brighton & Hove Albion announce squad numbers ahead of each Premier League season, and for Kaoru Mitoma — the Kawasaki Frontale product who joined Brighton in 2021 and has become the club’s most recognizable Japanese international winger — the reveal carries more than cosmetic weight, since Japanese fans tend to read continuity or symbolism into shirt numbers in a way baseball fans (NPB) generally don’t, a contrast one poster makes directly by comparing soccer’s number culture to how nobody tracks what number a star like Murakami wears. The context behind the reactions matters too: Solly March, the English winger who had been central to Brighton’s attack, left the club this summer; Mitoma’s Japan teammate Takefusa Kubo remains at Real Sociedad in La Liga rather than at a “big club”; and South Korea’s Lee Kang-in, now at Atlético Madrid, has taken over the No.7 there, prompting an instinctive cross-comparison from Japanese posters.
The thread never actually settles into a debate about Mitoma’s number itself — reactions to it are uniformly positive. Where it splits is on Kubo’s prospects: some argue a move to a mid-table or lower Premier League side is realistic if he strings together a strong scoring season, while others insist there is “zero real demand” for him regardless of media hype. A parallel, unresolved argument breaks out over whether a squad number can be objectively “cool” at all, and the thread drifts further off-topic into unrelated complaints about J.League TV ratings.
What’s easy to miss: no post ever states the actual number Mitoma was given. The praise (“absolutely badass,” “want that jersey”) is reacting to the announcement itself, not describing it, so readers hoping to learn the specific digit from the discussion won’t find it here.
*This article is compiled and summarized from the 5ch (Geinou/Sports News+) thread “[Soccer] “It’s here!!!” “Absolutely badass” — Kaoru Mitoma’s new squad number sparks huge reaction! “I want that jersey so bad” “It’s gonna sell out~”.”
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