Legends FC was honored to welcome a 9 member delegation of visitors from Japan’s professional soccer league, J-League. The clubs represented were:  Roasso Kumamoto, Thespa Kusatsu, Oita Trinita, Yokohama FC, Ventoforet Kofu, FC Gifu, Ehime FC, and a staff member and cameraman from the J-League organization.

The J-League delegation also visited the MLS clubs: FC Dallas, LA Galaxy and Chivas USA. Our visitors were pleased to visit Legends  because they were anxious to ask our Directors about the youth teams and programs.

In Japan, the J-League requires professional teams to host at least one youth team. From the clubs represented on the trip, most hosted one boys high-school age team to fulfill this requirement. They are looking to expand their youth programs as soccer is very popular. (Their top three sports are baseball, soccer and sumo.) Each year approximately 100 high school and club players join one of the 33 J-League teams as professional players. This means 100 players also retire every year.

Of course we invited the teams to compete in the Legends Classic and Legends Cup. They jokingly replied that if we paid for transportation they would be happy to participate.

One interesting difference between youth soccer in Japan and the U.S. is that in Japan the youth players often travel to the matches by themselves on public transportation. They wondered how the players would get to different facilities such as Veterans Park or Ayala.