Why not Japan?!

Hamburg SV opened their second half of the season with a loss against Nuremberg in the German Bundesliga.

As some of you may know, Iran and Japan internationals Mehdi Mahdavikia and Naohiro Takahara both play for Hamburg. Today, they started and played most of the game together before Takahara was substituted in the last ten minutes.

Twice in the first half the duo combined and came close to scoring for Hamburg, but Nuremberg goalkeeper’s heroics kept them off the score sheet.

I enjoyed watching these two Asian stars play together so well.

Earlier this week another Japanese-Iranian combination came close to materializing when Japanese midfielder Mitsuo Ogasawara was contemplating a move to Messina of Serie A where Iranian international Rahman Rezaei plays. The deal, however, did not go through.

Watching the Hamburg game, I started wondering why Iranian players do not move to Japan. Japanese football league is one of the best organized and most talented leagues in Asia. Iranian players, in my humble opinion, will be better off in J-League than in smaller leagues like that of Qatar.

I do not mean to put down the Qatari league as I’ll be the first to admit that they are far better organized than their Iranian counterpart, but a quick look at Japanese stadiums will confirm their commitment to excellence.

All it takes is one Iranian footballer to make the move to Japan, and more will follow. So who will be the first?