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	Hidetoshi Nakata. (PANA)

In the qualifying competition for the 1986 World Cup in Mexico, Japan beat North Korea and Hong Kong to come within one match of reaching the finals. But it lost the last qualifying match to South Korea, whose team was made up of professional players. After this, many people said that Japan would not be able to beat foreign teams unless it too started playing professionally.

These calls did not result in the immediate launch of a professional soccer league, however. Japanese amateur teams had reached the last eight of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics and won the bronze medal at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, and these successes had reinforced the preference for amateurism in the Japanese soccer world. Also, Japan already had soccer teams owned and run by companies, and since 1965 they had competed in the Japan Soccer League. The bronze-medal winning team from the Mexico City Olympics was mainly composed of players from these company teams.

However, in the late 1980s Japan was doing poorly in international matches and had failed to qualify for the World Cup and the Olympics. It was only natural that the JSL, whose players had made little impact in international games, would lose popularity.

A Top League of 16 Teams
By the 1990s, many people in Japanese soccer accepted the need to make the sport professional, and in 1991 it was decided to create the Japan Professional Football League, or J. League. The league kicked off in May 1993. A special feature of the new league was that each team would be attached to a region. They would, in principle, dispense with company names and stress that they represented their local community. The teams were obliged to have stadiums that could hold over 15,000 spectators and to have youth teams that could nurture young players.

This was the end of the practice of having teams run by companies. The ultimate aim of the J. League was to create broad-based sports clubs like those found in Europe. Under the banner "Sports Community for All," the idea was that each club would be home not just to a soccer team but to many different sports teams, supported by strong links with local people. Saburo Kawabuchi, the chairman of the J. League, said, "As long as the teams are supported passionately by their local communities, they should be able to succeed."

The J. League started in 1993 with 10 teams, but now it has grown to a total of 28 teams, with 16 in J. League Division One (J1) and 12 in Division Two (J2). This season Vegalta Sendai became the first team from the Tohoku region, in northeastern Japan, to play in J1. There are also moves in Shikoku and Okinawa, two regions that do not have teams, aimed at having J. League teams in the future. Compared to professional baseball, which has only 12 teams, the J. League has spread very quickly nationwide. A number of places have become famous throughout Japan for their consistent strength in soccer, such as Kashima City in Ibaraki Prefecture and Iwata City in Shizuoka Prefecture.

	Dragan Stojkovic. (J.League Photos)

Overseas Players Make Their Mark
Some veteran stars, such as Masashi "Gon" Nakayama of Jubilo Iwata and Kazuyoshi "Kazu" Miura of Vissel Kobe, have been playing since the launch of the J. League and are still going strong. And many world-famous players from outside Japan have contributed to the J. League's progress, too. They include Brazil's Zico, who led Kashima Antlers to the first-ever J. League title; 1986 World Cup top goalscorer Gary Lineker of England, who played for Nagoya Grampus Eight; Pierre Littbarski, a member of Germany's 1990 World Cup-winning team who played for Jef United Ichihara; Dunga, captain of Brazil's 1994 World Cup winners, who played for Jubilo Iwata; and Dragan Stojkovic, the great Yugoslavian midfielder, who retired last year after several years with Nagoya Grampus Eight. Former Brazilian World Cup stars Edmundo (of Tokyo Verdy) and Sampaio (of Kashiwa Reysol) are among the world-class talents currently playing in the J. League.

J. League Makes National Team Stronger
Thanks to the J. League, Japanese players now compete with top foreign opponents on a regular basis and play 40 or 50 professional games every year. This has helped to achieve the biggest goal of the J. League - to make the Japanese national team stronger. Japan made its first World Cup appearance in 1998 in France. The driving force of Japan's team at the 2002 World Cup will be players like Hidetoshi Nakata (of Italian team Parma), Shinji Ono (of Dutch team Feyenoord), and Jun'ichi Inamoto (of English club Arsenal), who were aged about 13 to 16 when the J. League started. Encouraged by the founding of the professional league, they have worked intensively to improve their soccer skills since they were kids.

Some of these players came up through the youth teams attached to J. League clubs. Shunsuke Nakamura, a likely member of Japan's World Cup team, played for Yokohama Marinos' youth team as a boy, quickly progressed as a member of Toko Gakuen High School's soccer club, then returned to Yokohama Marinos as a professional. If the J. League had not been created, Japan would surely not be as deeply involved in the World Cup as it is today.