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The story
Former Japan national team player Yoshinori Kakitani appeared on ABEMA’s talk variety show “Uraaka Uraraka” (lit. “Secret Account, Bright Days”) and revealed the true feelings he held toward celebrities who talked about soccer back when he was still playing. The show has guests speak candidly based on anonymous posts, and alongside Kakitani, the lineup includes Eiji Wentz and Reiwa Roman’s Kuruma Takahira. On 5ch, the comment sparked a split in opinion over the quality of Japanese soccer commentary, the reputation of pundits like Leoz, and the gap between Kakitani’s own playing career and his standing as a commentator.
Former Japan national team player Yoshinori Kakitani appeared on ABEMA’s talk variety show “Uraaka Uraraka,” where he revealed the frustrations he felt about soccer commentary during his playing days.
“Uraaka Uraraka” is a talk variety show built around the concept that, in an age where it’s gotten harder to speak your true feelings on social media and in the press, guests can “vent their honest thoughts anonymously through a ‘secret account’ without showing their face, and live a brighter (uraraka) life starting tomorrow.” Guests anonymously post “things they usually think” or “complaints and questions they can’t say in public” to the show’s dedicated “secret account,” and the cast discusses them candidly without knowing whose post is whose.
Episode #1, which aired on October 3rd, featured guest appearances by TV personality Eiji Wentz, cosplayer Enako, former Japan national team player Yoshinori Kakitani, Reiwa Roman’s Kuruma Takahira, artist MON7A, and TV personality Anna Murashige.
Source: ggtnews.net / Original article here
What people said
He's from Kansai and he's a smooth talker, plus he's got the voice and the looks going for him.
Meanwhile Okazaki (fans' flipped-syllable nickname "Zakioka"), who was a far better player than him, could never pull this off.
Probably talking about Hirabatake, right?
I used to like Kakitani's commentary well enough, but then he barely criticized Shiotani's string of plays, just brushed it off as "he's full of energy," and after that I stopped liking him so much.
Then there's Uchida, who I'm not that fond of either — when substitute Matsugi battled to keep the ball moving, he said, "He's really playing for the team… Matsugi is."
???: "Great name, that one."
Japanese soccer commentary has an unwritten rule against being negative.
As long as you're tied at the hip to the Football Association,
calling anyone out is off-limits — Hidehiko Shimizu's the textbook example.
Matsugi gets away with it because his style is more "tough love," lol.
He keeps getting the players' names wrong and still won't stop rambling on.
This is true in any sport, but soccer especially draws a lot of loud bandwagon fans (niwaka).
And yet, for all that, the players themselves rarely complain about it.
That attitude deserves real credit.
"Depth"? Anyone can talk a big game — talk is cheap.
At the end of the day, what matters is actually commanding a team and getting results.
Including the results, where you end up is the true measure of your worth.
Come on, no.
What are you even talking about — you're a total soccer amateur.
That's the real issue here.
That theory is just plain dumb, honestly.
It's all pointless trivia-dropping and bandwagon-fan cheerleading instead.
That's probably just because you've only watched old Japan national team games.
Before the World Cup: "Let's see the best version of ourselves — attack with that Japanese style, defend as an organized, connected unit."
After the World Cup: "It's about the individual! Individual, individual, individual! If you can't break through on pure individual skill, you can't compete at the top!"
What's with the total flip-flop? Though to be fair, the networks were already building shows around that narrative (like Fantastic 11).
They even beat Belgium away.
Then before you knew it, Osako became the regular starter and Kakitani just faded out.
And then Okubo got picked for the actual tournament instead, and that was that.
Such a waste.
All he could do was make runs behind the defense — he couldn't hold the ball up as a target man.
He just wasn't usable.
Barely any record with the national team either.
Even when he got picked for the World Cup, he just stood around on the field for a bit and that was it.
I don't think it's wrong to say a guy like that shouldn't be talking about the World Cup.
If you start saying things like that, almost nobody would be qualified to talk about anything.
It's as ridiculous as saying "If you've got complaints about politics, go become a politician yourself!"
He seems to be taking every job that comes his way lately.
"Taking anything" is a stretch — he's not doing anything particularly weird.
If you take that logic seriously, you couldn't say anything about politicians, home appliances, or even a bowl of ramen.
Well yeah, if someone says that to you, you're going to think it.
Honestly there's some truth to it — we run our mouths precisely because we can't do it ourselves.
If we could, we'd be J-League players, lol.
It's the same for barbers, cleaners, programmers, bus drivers — any job at all.
No matter the profession, you'd never catch someone saying something as dumb as "you try it yourself then" to a customer or an ordinary person.
The only people who say this are athletes and comedians.
A lot of athletes don't say stuff like that, but celebrities look down on people in other professions as just "ordinary people," and then they snap the moment they're pushed into a corner — that's about as uncool as it gets.
Players and fans aren't exactly in a client-contractor relationship anyway, so what's the problem?
Background and Key Points of the Debate
Yoshinori Kakitani has a national team history that includes being part of the squad for Japan’s away win over Belgium during the 2014 World Cup qualifying cycle, but after Yuya Osako’s rise he lost his spot in the lineup and was cut from the squad before the tournament itself. This latest comment is rooted in that playing career, but on the thread it sparked a clash between the argument that “someone with such a thin playing record has no business talking” and the counterargument that “everyone has the right to voice an opinion.” There were also comments pointing out that Japanese soccer commentary tends to avoid criticizing players, a tendency some attribute to the relationship between broadcasters and the Japan Football Association. Since the show itself is built around a candid-talk format based on anonymous posts, it’s worth noting that it’s hard to tell from this material alone how closely the quoted remarks match Kakitani’s own exact words.
* This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Geisokuho+) thread “Former Japan international Yoshinori Kakitani confesses his true feelings about celebrities who talk soccer: “Everyone who’s actually played thinks, ‘Just try it yourself!’”“
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