With the transfer of Takefusa Kubo to Real Madrid, changes were taking place in Japanese football.
Just a year before Vissel Kobe, a professional football club which played in Japanese league 1 had secured the signature of one of the greatest midfielder in the world. It had managed to sign Andres Iniesta from Barcelona.
Also at that same year in 2018's world cup, Japanese men's national team had performed really well in the tournament.
Even though they had been placed in the group with the likes of Colombia, Senegal and Poland, they had managed to defeat Colombia, a country from south America which performed really well in the previous world cup.
With James Rodriguez winning the golden boot, they had managed to reach quarter finals of the world cup 2014.
Japanese team also managed to pull out a draw against Senegal, one of the powerhouse football nation of African continent.