Throwback Thursday: Japan's First European Football Export

This article originally appeared on VICE Sports UK.

For those under the age of 30 – that is to say, the core readership of this website – Japan are considered a solid international football side. While they've not yet looked like winning a World Cup, they have qualified for the last five in succession and can be relied upon to field a strong team featuring a few European-based stars and some domestic talent you probably haven't heard of yet.

It's a similar story for their domestic structure. Until 1993, Japan did not have a professional setup; today the J-League is firmly established, known for producing young talent and providing a few faded superstars with a final hurrah. For the former, think Kagawa, Honda and Hasebe; for the latter, there are Lineker, Zico, and Forlan.

But look back just a little further into football history – to a time before Zinedine Zidane had lifted the World Cup trophy – and you find a national team who had never reached the pinnacle of the global game. Japan had only attempted to qualify for the World Cup sporadically before 1970 and, though they entered every time thereafter, it was 28 years before they finally reached France 98. They didn't make it to the final of the Asian Cup until 1992, but have now won four of the past seven tournaments.

As for their players, Japanese footballers are now dotted across Europe. The man who first trod that path and became the country's maiden footballing export to the continent made his debut 38 years ago today, on October 22nd 1977.

When Yasuhiko Okudera was growing up professional football in Japan was still some way off, while the domestic structure was hardly comparable with today's. Nevertheless, his ability took him to the other side of the world. After leaving school he joined Furukawa Electric Company and played for their works side in the amateur Japan Soccer League. Before long he was representing his country on the international stage, albeit with modest results.

When his club team went on tour to Germany in 1977 Okudera's life was changed. Spotted by scouts at the Bundesliga side 1. FC Köln, he was offered an unlikely opportunity to move to Germany, whose national side were reining world champions. At a time when far fewer players were moving abroad, this meant Okudera – effectively an amateur – was now playing in the same division as a host of World Cup winners. He made his debut away at MSV Duisburg, a 2-1 win for Köln.

"I really wasn't sure if I'd be able to make the grade over there," he said in an interview with FIFA.com in 2009. "The first season was a real struggle, not so much in terms of the style of play, but it took a while to get used to the lifestyle. It was from my second season onwards that I felt I had a good grip on things."

Despite his own uncertainty about his debut season, Okudera's goals in the final two games helped Köln to seal the Bundesliga title. They also won the DFB-Pokal, Germany's domestic cup, to cap a very tidy first year in Germany.

The following season he was part of the Köln side that reached the European Cup semi-finals. He scored a late equaliser away to Nottingham Forest in the first leg, helping his side to a 3-3 draw. However a 1-0 home defeat in the return fixture saw the English side progress on their way to lifting the trophy.

He then switched to Hertha Berlin for a season before joining Werder Bremen. Having now fully adjusted to life overseas, Okudera sees this as his most fruitful time in European football.

"I was at my most consistent while I was playing at Bremen," he said. "I didn't have any problems with the language or my environment or anything."

It didn't quite match up to his time at Köln in terms of silverware, with Bremen finishing as Bundesliga runners-up three times during his stay at the club. But – as well as already having a winner's medal – Okudera had achieved something more significant than a title. He'd travelled to one of the best leagues in the world and played at some of its top clubs. What's more, he did so for almost a decade. Any notion that Japanese players couldn't cope in Europe, or that they'd return home due to the cultural differences, had been erased.

Having spent nine years in Germany, making 259 appearances and scoring 34 goals, Okudera returned to Japan in 1986, joining his former side Furukawa Electric (now renamed JEF United). A domestic league title and the Asian Club Championship followed, before he hung up his boots in 1988.

Almost four decades later, Okudera's influence can still be seen in Japanese football. Seven of their squad at last year's World Cup were based in Germany, including captain Makoto Hasebe, who currently represents Eintracht Frankfurt. A further two a piece were based in England and Italy, with another in Belgium.

Of course, players like Hasebe and Shinji Kagawa have made the transition in an age when being a few thousand miles away from home is not the strain it once was. With mass communication, you're never truly disconnected from those you have left behind. You can watch TV from back home online, read the same websites, and hold video conversations with the people you miss. You don't really need to immerse yousef in a new culture if you don't want to (see Shakhtar Donetsk's Brazilian enclave for evidence of this).

Okudera moved across the globe at a time when leaving home meant exactly that: leaving behind your way of life and being dropped into a new one, while also trying to make an impression in a highly competitive sporting environment. That he achieved this and blazed a trail for subsequent generations of Japanese players is no small feat. The country's footballing evolution – and the fact that the under-30s can only recall a strong Japanese national side – owes a great deal to Yasuhiko Okudera.