An Antlers OB Talks About My Academy Days

3rd Kashima Antlers Tsukuba Junior Youth Coach Yuichi Nemoto

 

During my playing days, I aimed for titles with the Antlers emblem on my back. What kind of training did I do during my academy years to become a professional soccer player, and what kind of obstacles did I face? We explore the training methods, daily habits, and mindset I had at the time.

I Wanted to Work for Antlers

On a corner of the pitch at the Tsukuba Academy Center, a gentle voice envelops the boys and girls chasing the ball.

“Even after retiring as a player, I always wanted to stay involved in soccer. While I was still playing, I interacted with children at soccer clinics where players also participated as guests. Seeing the children happy and improve made me decide that I wanted to become a coach.”

Coach Yuichi Nemoto, who excelled for the Antlers top team and the Japan age-group national teams during his playing days with his highly accurate left-footed kicking as a weapon, and also played for several J-League clubs, naturally followed the path to becoming a coach. And he arrived in Tsukuba, where his mentor from his Kashima Junior Youth days was waiting.

“If I were to work as a coach, I wanted to work for Antlers first, the club that raised me. When I reported my retirement to Football Advisor Mitsuru Suzuki and consulted him about it, he told me, “Come work for us.” When I also consulted Junichi Kawasaki, who was the center manager of the Tsukuba Academy Center at the time, he asked me, “How about Tsukuba?” Mr. Kawasaki was my manager when I was in my first year of junior high school, and he told me, “We need someone who came out of the Antlers academy and has experience playing for Antlers.”

Born and raised in Kashima Town, Kashima District, Ibaraki Prefecture, the home of Antlers, he spent his days immersed in soccer from the second grade of elementary school. He spent happy days with his friends at Takamatsu Elementary SS, the local youth club he first joined, but team practice alone wasn’t enough, so he kept kicking the ball at the schoolyard and the walls in the neighborhood.

“Youth club activities were just so much fun. I remember doing basic training and a lot of game-format training. However, we didn’t practice for that long, so my own independent practice time was overwhelmingly longer. If youth club practice ended in the morning, my close friends and I would keep kicking the ball until dusk. When I was alone, I would mark the wall in the neighborhood and aim for it, or go to school and kick toward the goal. At the time, I didn’t realize that my left-footed kicking was my strength, but I just loved kicking the ball, and I wanted to take free kicks and corner kicks myself. Then, the youth club coach told me, “Just score goals with your left foot and make the team win.” I still remember being told that today.”

Because Taku Was There

The J-League was founded in 1993, and at the same time, Antlers’ youth development organization also began its activities. Coach Nemoto, who was in the sixth grade of elementary school at the time, also aspired to become a member of Antlers, and when he was about to enter junior high school, he took the Kashima Junior Youth selection. However, partly due to an injury, he failed. When he was about to submit his junior high school enrollment form, thinking, “I’ll continue playing soccer in the junior high school club. I’ll try the selection again next year,” he received a call from Yoshinori Komatsu, who was the school master at the time.

“Mr. Komatsu contacted me at home, and I was able to join the Kashima Junior Youth about two months after the members who passed the selection. Later, when I heard the story, it seems that a coach of the Kashima Town select team, who knew I had failed, recommended me to Antlers. The club’s development staff also knew me, and with the support of the coach of that select team, I was able to become a member of the Kashima Junior Youth.”

It was unusual to be allowed to join the team even though he hadn’t passed the selection. It was because the top J-League club could not overlook the talent that had shone at Takamatsu Elementary SS and the Kashima Town select team during his elementary school years, and his left-footed kicking that he had honed through repeated training.

“When I was in the youth club, I could score directly with free kicks and corner kicks, score goals with long shots, and of course, work hard in defense—I could do everything myself. I remember playing in a position like an attacking midfielder at the time. But when I joined the junior youth, there were players who were better than me, and I couldn’t play the way I wanted, so I hit a wall. My position was also not in the center, but on the left side. All my teammates were players who each had their own individuality and strengths, and that fired me up as well.”

At Kashima Junior Youth, he received guidance from the aforementioned Coach Kawasaki (now a top team staff member), and at the youth level, he honed himself with his classmate Takuya Nozawa and others under the guidance of Coach Yuji Yamazaki (who served as the Academy Director until 2023).

“Taku (Nozawa) joined Kashima Junior Youth when he was in his second year of junior high school, and he had been accompanying the top team matches since the youth level. His position was in the center, and mine was on the left side. When I ran on the left side, the ball would always come from Taku. There was no player who could see my movements as well as he did and give me passes to match them. So, probably if Taku hadn’t been there, I wouldn’t have become someone who stood out to the people around me, and I think I was able to become a professional because Taku was there.”

During his playing days, he fought as an Antlers player from 2000 to 2005

The humanity needed in society

During his junior high and high school years, what remains particularly memorable is the teaching of Mr. Edu, also known as the “big brother” of Geco Club Advisor.

“The influence I received from Mr. Edu was huge. He was a person with an incredible obsession with technique, to the point where I thought, “Is it really that important?” The placement of the ball after stopping it, or the pause before kicking the ball after setting it for a free kick—his coaching was really detailed. As I put Mr. Edu’s teachings into practice myself, I realized the importance of technique and basic skills, and the importance of attention to detail. I learned from failures and successes, and he gave me various insights. Also, when I joined the youth level and was in my first year of high school, it was Mr. Edu who converted me to left sideback. “The position to make full use of Nemoto’s kicking is probably further back than the front.” Mr. Edu became the most important person in my football life thereafter.”

Under Mr. Edu, Coach Nemoto came to value football “technique” even more than before, and turned it into his own dramatic growth. Even after playing in the professional world under many coaches, the football philosophy he learned during his student days remained the core of Coach Nemoto.

After ending his playing life in 2013, 13 years after Antlers achieved the “three-crown” feat, he started his second life as a coach from 2014. Each and every teaching he inherited from Antlers’ development staff, including Mr. Edu, is Coach Nemoto’s textbook as a coach.

“I was also developed by Coach Nobuyoshi Fujishiro during my junior youth days, and I learned the overall way of fighting in football from Coach Yamazaki during my youth days. At the same time we were promoted to the top team, Tonyinho Cerezo arrived in 2000, and he taught us the importance of being particular about every single match and, above all, the importance of taking challenges. Even now when I look back, I feel anew how important those “obvious things” really are, and I tell the children the same thing.”

Since becoming a coach of Tsukuba Junior Youth, he has produced talented players, led by the FW Takuto Tokuda, who will officially be promoted to the top team from the 2025 season. However, what he has emphasized to them is not what happens on the pitch, but rather what happens off the pitch.

“When I became the manager of Tsukuba Junior Youth, I had a strong desire to somehow take the team, which had never participated in the national tournament yet, to that stage. Antlers has the words “dedication, sincerity, respect” and “everything is for the sake of victory,” and the players knew that and were trying to embody it on the pitch. That is exactly why I thought there was a need to look at things like humanity and daily life, things off the pitch. The players had been preparing for matches every day by paying attention to details. I have the impression that such efforts have influenced the results of football well. It may sound exaggerated, but the academy is becoming an entity that supports the club. However, not everyone can necessarily reach the top team. Everyone will eventually have to take off their cleats. I think it is also necessary in the academy to hone the kind of humanity that will make them needed by someone when they enter society after that.”

Coach Nemoto continues to return the spirit he inherited from Mr. Edu, Mr. Tonyinho Cerezo, and all the people involved with Antlers to the children in Tsukuba today as its missionary.

Coach Tonyinho Cerezo (left) and Mr. Edu (right), coaches who had a great influence on Nemoto