When I think about a decade ago, even looking at my own country (Italy), it was hard to talk about analytics. They were there, but we were not yet into the phase where they were totally on the global stage. Yet that process seems completely integrated now, and there’s been analysts who have been part of football clubs also before, but they’re making their way into the conversation also outside of football institutions.
That’s the case of the protagonist of this interview, Ryo Nakagawara. His newsletter “Shogun Soccer” has been pretty popular since its launch, and Ryo has been following the J.League with passion, analysing players, matches, squads and future European prospects from Japan. In a way, to me (and I guess for many of the fans of the J.Leauge-sphere), he’s been a “must read” in the last years to absorb everything around the Japanese championship.
Whether on YouTube or Spotify, whether it’s an interview or a podcast, you maybe heard of him. But we wanted to sit down with him in a real interview to get his will to follow the J.League through data, his passion around FC Tokyo, and why data have been played such a fundamental role as well for the Japanese championship as well. For me, Ryo falls into a category that I would define as pillars of the current conversation around the J.League.
So I hope you’re gonna enjoy this exchange!
Ryo, hi! First question is the common one – how did your passion towards football begin? And how did you keep it as a part of your life now?
I started playing football at a local park when I was 3. Due to my parent’s job, I went on to live in 5 different countries and football was the one common thing, so I simply kept playing. It was how I always managed to make friends no matter where I went. I got to experience playing football across a large spectrum of levels in vastly different football cultures all over the world. I’ve been back in Japan for a few years now and I still play, more futsal and small-sided games though.
Japanese football has changed so much even in the last decade. If you remember 10 years ago, what’s striking you as an evolution?
I mentioned this on Twitter a few weeks ago, but the development of centre-backs and more of them playing in Europe is a big plus. Going from only Maya Yoshida to a full squad’s worth of centre-backs playing across various levels in European competition is a huge evolution for Japan. Alongside the technical qualities that defenders are required in modern football, Japanese defenders have also clearly made steps to address the physical side of the game more as well.
Later in that thread I talked about the need for goalkeepers to be the next up. We’ve seen a few younger guys make it to Europe now but there needs to be more and the JFA’s new goalkeeper plan that was launched in 2021 should help with that as well.
The J.League has turned 32 years old in 2025. The public has changed, the clubs have changed, the stadiums are starting to. Is there something that’s been missing?
I still maintain that stadiums are a huge issue. Things have been changing for the better with Nagasaki and Hiroshima’s stadium showing what a proper football-specific stadium in the heart of a city can do for a club and the citizens themselves but there’s still a lot more room for growth.
Frontale and Yamagata’s new stadiums should be very good developments but the elephant in the room has always been a proper football-specific stadium in Tokyo. I would say multiple football-specific stadiums in Tokyo is an absolute must in one of the biggest cities in the entire world, let alone Japan. The fact that potential has yet to be unlocked is quite disappointing.
You’re a FC Tokyo fan. How do you feel about the club and the current moment they’re living in?
If people have read my J.League Season Reviews on Shogun Soccer over the past few years I think you can track my deteriorating mental health from the performances of FC Tokyo on the pitch as well as all the things going on off the pitch at the club (recruitment, managerial decisions, etc.).
On a more positive note, the recently announced new training facilities next to Ajinomoto Stadium is certainly welcome. MIXI and FC Tokyo have pledged plans for a new stadium by 2030 so that’s another thing to look forward to.
Data-wise, you see a lot of players. Is there something in those data that can underline the evolution of Japanese football, if you compare it to something you were observing 5 or 10 years ago?
Unfortunately, I don’t have access to that kind of detailed data that would be useful to answer this. I will say though that in a very general sense, the physical metrics and the intensity of the J.League are a very big factor in why Japanese players are able to adapt so well to European leagues in recent years (along with the obvious technical abilities).
A very fan-service questions: your favourite Japanese players, and maybe one case of player you would have like to see shining, but it didn’t happen (e.g. Yoichiro Kakitani and Takashi Usami are for me good examples of that).
It’s probably Shunsuke Nakamura for the national team. When I was a kid, I really thought Takayuki Morimoto was going to be the next big thing.
Last but not least, the goals for the future. What’s your personal hope with your work? And what would you like to see from the J.League that’s not happening now?
Funnily enough, my Twitter and my old blog (before Shogun Soccer) was never intended to be a football related account. I created to help my job search in the data science field and posting and following the data science community on Twitter was the best way to go about it.
Once I got a job and got settled, it became clear to me I needed to keep practicing my skills, because I was self-taught and there were many things I still didn’t know. So that’s how I got started with playing around with data in football – which is ironic considering how, when I was growing up, I thought data in football was nonsense.
As time passed, I increasingly became a football related account as I simply spent more of my time using my account as a space to distance myself from the day job.
Now I’ve come back around to primarily just watching football as good detailed data for the J.League is so limited and I’ve created pipelines for all the data I need for my blog at this point. That’s honestly how I spend the majority of time outside of work these days, just pouring through J1/J2/J3 and European football, 1~3 matches every single day.
Over the years, especially recently I’ve been contacted a lot by clubs, scouts, agents, journalists, consultancies, etc. on Japanese football and I’ve welcomed the chance to get involved in the industry. I’ve been lucky to get some part-time work and even offered full-time jobs. As many people have seen I’ve been very busy this summer talking to journalists or fan media about the various Japanese players joining European clubs in this transfer window.
However, I’m not really looking for a full-time job in football right now. Never say never, of course as I’ve certainly been tempted before. I spend such a ludicrous amount of time doing all of this because I want to and I can do it on my own terms. I feel like if I had to do it as my job, where my livelihood depended on it, I wouldn’t find the same enjoyment.
So I’m just going to continue doing blogging and taking the occasional part-time or consulting gig. My goals remain the same. I feel there is a distinct lack of Asian voices despite the increased spotlight on Asian football, especially Japanese football in general, so I need to keep myself visible and available.
Ryo, thanks for your time! It was a pleasure to talk with you and there are many channels on which you can follow him. Naturally you should subscribe to “Shogun Soccer” (here), but you can find him on Twitter, Bluesky and Substack. And if you wanna find other interviews to other pillars of the J.League-sphere, our “His-torii” category serves you right.
