There’s nothing more legendary than seeing something becoming a worldwide attraction, the property of everyone, globally. J. League is trying to achieve that, but to do so, you need a global fanbase. And it’s there, although its numbers can certainly rise. In this series of pieces – which will all fall under the label “J. League Worldwide”, we’re trying to tell the personal and professional stories of Japanese football fans all over the world.
Before introducing the eleventh instalment of the series, I want to remind the efforts of Stuart Smith in starting this column (you can find him @Sushi_Football on Twitter, doing a good job in spreading the word for J.League). Twenty-two episodes are done, and in the last one – published a few weeks ago – we talked with Adam (@AdamBloszko17) about his journey from Poland to Edinburgh and the push to know more about J.League, even covering it professionally.
And if you can read here his interview with us, for Episode number 23, we move back to the Americas, this time choosing Canada. It’s not the first time we’re interviewing someone from that region, and coincidentally the fan comes from the same zone of the first interview we had – Vancouver. His passion for Japan and the J.League started back in ’08, when Gamba Osaka faced Manchester United in the FIFA Club World Cup.
From there, Zach became an active member of the J.League-sphere and enjoyed a few matches in Japan as well. But I don’t want to steal the words from the man’s mouth – enjoy this new episode of the column!
Where are you from and when did you first start following the J. League?
I was born and raised in Vancouver, British Columbia, in Canada, and still live here to this day. I first knew about the J.League around 2008 when Gamba Osaka faced Manchester United in the FIFA Club World Cup semifinals. At the time, I had no particular team so whoever was broadcasted on TV here was who I watched. Manchester United were the Premier League and UEFA Champions League defending champions back that year.
For many of my years as a teenager and young adult, I was heavily focused on playing volleyball so watching football was not something I had time for. After the post-Covid years – when I got tired of video games being the majority of my free time –, I started closely following J.League when the international YouTube channel started broadcasting their matches for free; I am definitely not the only one in this regard!
Do you have a favourite team or player?
My favourite team is Kawasaki Frontale whom I picked as they were the first club I watched in person, but some of the other teams I also enjoy are Kyoto Sanga, Cerezo Osaka, and Kagoshima United FC. As for players, that preference tends to often change… but since Bundesliga is my favourite European league, I’m gonna follow anyone who has played there before to different extent; certainly, no shortage of those players here.
We’re used to seeing a lot of coverage around football here in Europe or South America. A tendency growing as well in North America and Asia. How do you keep up with the news regarding the league?
Various sources whether that is the J League feed on Bluesky which includes the likes of Dan Orlowitz and Ryo Nakagawara, or the various posts on Twitter that people share on the J.League Discord servers. I very much appreciate all the individuals that give updates on their clubs throughout the different tiers of Japanese football as in the recent years I have enjoyed a lot more of the lesser known leagues as compared to the trendy stuff that you cannot go a single day without hearing.
News from the J.League are certainly not as easy to find as the world’s biggest leagues, but that also can teach us an important lesson that I am sure many of us learned at a younger age: to not put your entire trust on only one singular source for everything. This applies nowadays far more than ever before in social media times.
Have you ever been to Japan for some matches? If so, how was the impact? And if not, which match and which aspect are you longing for the most?
Thanks to J.League’s decision to stream some matches on Youtube every match week that convinced me to make the trip, and there was plenty to learn and take from it. I remember both matches from 2024 very well; the first one was the crazy 5-4 victory by Júbilo Iwata away at Kawasaki Frontale. I did not have any particular expectations for the experience but it was nothing short of incredible; whether it was the hangout area outside the stadium with the food trucks, both sets of fans chanting since long before kick off until the end, or the wild way in which the match unfolded.
This experience actually convinced me to learn the different chants and now I know a decent amount of Frontale’s as well as a few others from various J.League clubs. This year, I attended seven matches in seven different stadiums and each of them had different notable things, whether it was FC Tokyo at the Kokuritsu, Kota Takai’s last gasp equalizer against Kanagawa rivals Yokohama F. Marinos or seeing Kyoto Sanga’s first home win of the season not knowing they would be leading the league at the time of writing this.
I most definitely plan to travel back to Japan to attend even more matches and hopefully in regions I have not visited yet – such as Tohoku and Shikoku.
From your point of view, how do you think the J. League has been perceived in your own country? And there’s a space to improve the image of the league around the world, just like they’re trying to do?
As others have noted, time zones make it difficult to catch the matches, but living in the Pacific timezone it is possible to catch the early afternoon matches that occur outside of the Summer months without staying up too late. Obviously, it’s way harder to catch these matches when they play the games in the evening local time in the Summer.
Perhaps me showing up to Vancouver Whitecaps FC matches sometimes wearing my Frontale jersey can help others discover J.League, who knows… Vancouver being very multicultural means you can find fans of leagues around the world here, but J.League still remains rather unknown though I have recently found someone here that follows the league.
On the other hand, I enjoy J.League being one of the leagues that is not quite so popular in the media because that equates to a higher percentage of more passionate fans and followers as opposed to the popular leagues where they are dominated by people that are more interested in only the most popular names and teams, leading to what feels like a focus on commercialization and profits at the cost of the local supporters and true fans.
Two things that I believe would help promote the league worldwide is more broadcasting rights and higher transfer fees for players moving abroad. I think nowadays J.League clubs can do the latter without that many problems, and if that means the players end up staying an extra year or two for development, even better.
We want to thank Zach for his time – it was a fine chat and he’s very active on Discord on the J.League’s servers, so go check him out. Meanwhile, we hope to bring you soon Episode 24, so stay tuned!
