Japan academy pathway supplies senior internationals as graduates move abroad

Japan's residential football academies are supplying players to the women's national team and clubs overseas, according to new reporting by the Guardian. Shota Mishio, who has coached at the Fukushima academy, told the newspaper that a quarter of its original players had gone on to represent Japan at senior level.

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The report sets out the academy's contribution across two major tournaments: five members of Japan's 23-player squad at the 2023 Women's World Cup came through Fukushima, followed by seven players at the Paris Olympics in 2024. Japan won this year's Women's Asian Cup under Nils Nielsen, who has since been replaced as national-team coach by Michihisa Kano.

The Japanese Football Association operates three academies admitting girls: Fukushima, which opened in 2006, Sakai, established in 2012, and Imabari, which followed in 2015. Players enter at 13 and normally leave at 15, but Fukushima keeps them until 18. The Fukushima programme relocated to Susono City after the nuclear disaster in 2011 and has five technical coaches working with its girls.

The residential system combines schooling with training rather than focusing exclusively on football. Mishio said government education support sits alongside an academy programme covering English, other languages and football-specific vocabulary. Graduate Manaka Hayashi described attending school before afternoon training, with shorter school hours and more football once players reached high-school age. Living alongside older teenagers also taught her to communicate with people of different ages and backgrounds.

Hayashi graduated in 2022, played for INAC Kobe and joined Chicago Stars at the beginning of 2025 before moving to Juventus last month. She described a selective entry process in which roughly six players could be chosen from 100 to 200 applicants. Within the academy, she said, players regularly watched and analysed football together, while access to coaches and attention from JFA scouts created further opportunities to learn.

Technical ability remains central to that education. Hayashi said coaches stressed skill and intelligent use of possession as ways to compete against opponents with greater speed or strength. Mishio identified technique and endurance as the programme's main training priorities, and said more players were interested in careers abroad, although some still wanted to establish themselves professionally in Japan first.