Sometimes life is a leap into the dark. You don’t want to take too many risks, but if you want to grow, that must happen. The future is uncertain, it is by definition a leap into the unknown. And there’s a foreign player in the J.League who learnt that with time, experiences, and several rollercoasters seasons.
March 9th, 2019 – it’s the opening phase of the season, and Hokkaido Consadole Sapporo are hosting Shimizu S-Pulse. It’s a good day if you’re a Sapporo-based fan (and a terrible one if you’re a S-Pulse one and you’re playing Consadole those years…), because the team led by Petrovic is just crushing it out there. They’re up 2-1 in their opening game of the season, since they played the first two away.
The ball comes in at a certain point, and a rebound enters into the sphere of the no. 11. A quick touch with the right foot brings the ball into the net. The player celebrates his second goal of the day – he’ll add two more in the rest of the game to have a wonderful day… if it wasn’t for what it’s about to happen. Once the ball hits the net, he runs towards the fans and jumps over a billboard… only to fall. Deep.
That will probably stay as a metaphor of Anderson Lopes and his career for a while. The impatience, the talent, and the will to get all right away. For that fall, he’ll become unfortunately an Internet sensation for a few hours (the video under this paragraph comes from “The Guardian” and it has 4.1 million views, but they’re not alone). Six years later and with 100 J1 goals reached, we could say he landed the jump.
From Brazil to Hiroshima
First stop as a pro for Anderson Lopes was Avaí FC, where at just 21 years old the Brazilian played a fundamental role. After being on loan to Marcilio Dias and Tombense, the back-then winger was a key-player in the promotion, both in Série B and in Série A. This triggered a first change in Brazil, since Lopes signed for Athletico Paranaense in 2016. Little did he know.
The step was too big for him – Anderson Lopes didn’t play that much with his new club and looked for an alternative. That’s where a first opportunity to land in Japan came through – Sanfrecce Hiroshima became an option for the young Brazilian. It was a very different squad – the club was at the end of their leg with Hajime Moriyasu in the dugout, but they just won their third J1 title in four seasons.
Anderson Lopes joined Sanfrecce with one aim in my mind: replacing the departing Takuma Asano, who just signed for Arsenal as one of the last Arsène Wenger’s acquisitions in his time with the Gunners. The Brazilian stayed just 18 months, but the if t he first year was just an appetiser, the sophomore year in Japan gifted already a hint – put him closer to the goal.
Moriyasu understood that, and implemented this change before being sacked mid-season. Anderson Lopes scored some incredible goals (for example, this one against Sagan Tosu in 2016) and was a resource for a club that incredibly risked relegation that season. They spent two-thirds of the year in the relegation zone, but Jan Jönsson pulled it off at the last turn. Who knows if that was the factor to push Lopes away from Japan.
The EAFF Tour
Even if Tombense were the owner of his property, Sanfrecce Hiroshima didn’t manage to retain Lopes, and he instead signed for FC Seoul, a powerhouse in South Korea. Unfortunately, he lasted only one year, only to come back to Japan – for two reasons: he felt a bit abandoned to himself (where Japanese squad assign specific people for the foreign players), and the K-League was about strength, while the J.League was more technical.
Instead of Hiroshima, Anderson Lopes opted to come back to Japan for a different team – Hokkaido Consadole Sapporo. They were a rising force in the J.League, and it was a stellar side, with Chanathip Songkrasin, Jay Bothroyd and several Sapporo-raised players involved. Once the English man left and Musashi Suzuki did the same, Petrovic put Anderson Lopes as a centre forward.
It worked – in fact, the Brazilian kept his scoring record (despite some injuries), racking up 18 J1 League goals (including a famous poker in a home game against Shimizu S-Pulse), and then outdoing himself by putting together 12 goals in just 14 games of 2021. It seemed unstoppable, but nonetheless Consadole were lying in the bottom-half of the table. It might be because of that – but Anderson Lopes decided to leave Japan a second time.
Next stop? China. Despite the ongoing COVID-19 restrictions, and the struggles of the Chinese Super League, Anderson Lopes joined Wuhan Yangtze. Another bad decision, since the club would be then dissolved in a couple of years. The Brazilian had even a solid scoring record in the CSL (seven goals in 17 league games), even captaining the team and getting the club to a fourth place finish. But Japan called again.
Yokohama’s Delight
Money could have been good, but J.League had another level. And just like in Hiroshima, another key-player leaving from another team helped Anderson Lopes re-entering the J.League-sphere. This time, it was Daizen Maeda leaving Yokohama F. Marinos to join Celtic FC – this happened just a few weeks after Maeda won the top-scoring title (tied with Kawasaki Frontale’s Leandro Damiao).
Yokohama F. Marinos bought him, and the first move of head coach Kevin Muscat was giving the no. 9 spot to the Brazilian forward. It was a solid move, since Anderson Lopes immediately provided 11 goals to seal the J1 title in 2022. He double that rate in 2023 (by scoring 22 goals), and he scored even more in 2024 – despite the Marinos situation was a disaster.
Anderson Lopes won the Top Scoring title back-to-back in 2023 and 2024 – and it’s a special feat. Only five players did it – Masashi Nakayama, Ryoichi Maeda, Joshua Kennedy, the Brazilian from Marinos, and Yoshito Okubo (the only one to do it three times). And the no. 10 has also an excellent scoring record in the AFC Champions League – 15 goals in 21 games, plus propelling Marinos to an ACL Final just one year ago.
At 31 years old, he seems to have found a certain stability, and learnt from his mistakes – they were rumours of him leaving again last Winter (either Brasil or Middle East), but he decided to stay in Yokohama, where he’s actually having the time of his life on the pitch. Most of all, he’s improving with ageing – he scored two hat-tricks and eleven (!) braces in the last two seasons.
What’s Next
Besides the 100 goals-mark – reached in the first match of the 2025 J1 League season in a game against Albirex Niigata -, we think the evolution of the player has been remarkable. It happened to others too, but it’s not easy going from a speedy winger with some raw abilities to a deadly striker capable of multiple solutions. Surely the transition with Marinos helped, but it wasn’t granted.
Anderson Lopes’ career was a bit weakened by bad decisions. Picking South Korea and China in the moments where he was actually performing in Japan – plus almost risking a third departure from Japan this Winter – seems to say that the player is not the best at choosing his challenges, but he left everything on the pitch. And who knows if he would have reached the 100 goals-mark way before without those departures.
Anderson Lopes became the second player to exceed the 20 goals-mark per back-to-back seasons, and also the foreign player with most goals in the history of Marinos. What’s next? Well, with this kind of rhythm, and 3-4 seasons like these ones, he would definitely be on par to become the best foreign striker the J.League has ever seen – a record currently hold by Marquinhos, with 152 goals.
The club has put together the merch to celebrate this extraordinary achievement, and Anderson Lopes reached it also by wearing the captain’s armband in this match. The goals seem clear to him: “I’m really happy and proud to have scored 100 goals in such a league. I’m focused on this season – I don’t want to win just another top scoring title, but also the J1 title”.
