Almost 20 years for Avispa, starting from that Winter 2005, when he signed for the club. Almost 19 years later, there’s the chance for Avispa Fukuoka to win one title. Despite several promotions to J1, they never won the J2 properly, but rather came as runners-up or won the playoffs.
Among the people who snatched those four promotions (2005, 2010, 2015, 2020), you can look up to just one name. And it’s a heavy one. To understand its value, look at the list of the most loyal players in all three Japan football divisions. That’s the current ranking:
- Koji Homma, Mito HollyHock – 24 years, 4 months
- Hideomi Yamamoto, Ventforet Kofu – 20Y, 9M
- Toshihiro Aoyama, Sanfrecce Hiroshima – 19Y, 9M
- Naoki Hatta, Júbilo Iwata – 18Y, 9M
- Hisashi Jogo , Avispa Fukuoka – 18Y, 9M
Meant to be
It was probably written in the stars. Jogo was born in 1986, in Kurume, the third-largest most popolated city in the Fukuoka Prefecture (just behind Fukuoka and Kitakyushu). His parents were Fukuoka fans, and it wasn’t easy to support a struggling side in a city where baseball is bigger than football (Avispa got relegated from J1 in 2001).
Jogo could have been a track or a javelin athlete but then switched completely to football. At the Kunimi High School, J.Leaguers like Kazuma Watanabe and Masato Fujita played with Jogo, being in the same age bracket. But Hokuto Nakamura, Shingo Hyodo, and Sota Hirayama were just one year older than Jogo, producing an incredible concentration of talent for that age.
Indeed, the high school won the 2003 Championship, and in general, they performed well. After those years, Jogo didn’t wait for university: he wanted the big leap. And that leap was meant to be Avispa. He was destined for bigger things, to the no. 10 – firstly worn by a Maradona (although it was Hugo).
Becoming the no. 10
Of course, Jogo didn’t start right anyway with the no. 10 and didn’t even play a league match in his rookie year. With Avispa in the second tier, Jogo featured just in a couple of Emperor’s Cup matches. That October 10th, 2005 – in a first-round game against Sagawa Printing SC -, Jogo made his debut.
Looking back at the starting line-up, time flies. A young Ryuichi Kamiyama in goal. Yuki Matsushita scored the lone goal to win the game. Hokuto Nakamura sat on a thin bench. Jogo will play also the successive round, a 2-0 loss against FC Tokyo – although it took Jogo a few years to break through as a proper starter.
He took over the no. 10 in 2008, became a key player in 2009, and Jogo was at that point an instrumental player of the squad. Most of all, when I started following J.League back in 2010, it struck me how he was capable of sudden plays out of nothing. Probably his surname – which is Brazilian for “game” – bears a bigger destiny.
Jogo could have signed for a better team. After a solid J1 season in 2011, despite Avispa getting relegated, Jogo attracted interest from other clubs, especially Sanfrecce Hiroshima. He could have signed for them and won several Moriyasu titles, but he refused to stay in Fukuoka.
Senator, Legend, Ambassador
In 2015, Jogo became the captain of the team. Today that armband is worn by someone else, but there’s no doubt that the no. 10 reached that untouchable status at that point. A second and a third promotion cemented that, including players appreciating him from afar.
Take Sisinio, who didn’t hide liking Jogo for his craft, and exchanging some words and his jersey while facing the number 10 of Avispa Fukuoka. It’s not an accident that the supporters gave him the nickname “King”: Jogo has ascended to royalty status for the Level-5-Stadium aficionados.
Jogo stayed so long that he witnessed 13 different managers, from four different countries, including a former FIFA World Cup winner. He scored almost 100 goals with the club, despite playing far away from the goal and recording only one season (2012, in J2) with a double-digit tally of goals. He even played as a keeper once.
The list of records featuring for the club is long and impressive:
- Games played (more than 500 – and he’d be a record-man both in J1 & J2).
- Goals scored (96 as we’re writing – 100 is not far away).
- Second-oldest goalscorer ever (37 years, and 3 days – behind Koji Yamase for just four days).
- 18 consecutive seasons with at least one goal per year (don’t know how many players could brag about that one).
- Oldest player ever to feature (overcame Yuichi Komano this year).
What’s missing? A trophy. Avispa haven’t won anything since 1995, when they moved from Fujieda to Fukuoka and won the Japan Football League as “Fukuoka Blux”. The whole work of Shigetoshi Hasebe – a master in the dugout – would deserve an award. Fukuoka and the fans would deserve this.
But mostly Jogo would deserve this. He’s the product of an age that won’t come back. He reminds us of players like Guti or Juan Carlos Valeron, “panther”-like creative playmakers who are not so common in this day and age. The King would deserve more than a crown.
Thank you for this great piece on Jogo. I’ve had the great pleasure to see him play a few times over the years on my trips to Fukuoka. Always a great presence, no matter if the team won or lost. I truly hope Avispa can claim the cup for themselves and their fans tomorrow. Ganbatte Avispa!
Thank you, Sebastiano. Glad that you liked the piece – HJ10 deserves a shoutout.