'King Kazu' Miura, the Japanese Stanley Matthews, to Play Beyond 48th Birthday

It isn’t surprising that the post-war era of football is often viewed with such misty-eyed nostalgia. Countless legends tell of rough and tumble football, and players continuing despite catastrophic injuries before heading off to their second job after the game finished. It’s a time with a modern perception perhaps best exemplified by this quote from Bolton legend Nat Lofthouse, via The Guardian's David Lacey:

"There were plenty of fellers who would kick your b------s off. The difference was that at the end they'd shake your hand and help you look for them."

One of the most enduring names of the time is Stanley Matthews, undoubtedly one of the greatest players England has ever produced. As well as reputedly only drinking alcohol once in his life—when he drank champagne from the FA Cup after winning “The Matthews Final,” according to the National Football Museum—he was famed for his longevity.

He played in the English top flight until he was 50, and he represented England aged 42; both records unlikely ever to be broken. His playing career was so long that he became the first player to ever be knighted while still active.

Nowadays, with the physical demands of the game pushing players’ bodies to exhaustion, it seems that for someone to perform a Matthews-esque feat of endurance—even in a less demanding league—would be little short of miraculous.

“Miraculous” is probably just the word to describe the career of Kazuyoshi Miura, who has just signed a contract extension with J. League Division 2 side Yokohama FC which will see him play beyond his 48th birthday, according to The Guardian. He may not be as well known in the West as compatriots Keisuke Honda and Hidetoshi Nakata but in Japan he is venerated, and deservedly so. Already the world’s oldest active player, the 28-year career of “King Kazu” has seen plenty of twists and turns, making his story all the more remarkable.

It would be natural to assume that to play so long would have required at least some consistency—Matthews only played for Stoke City and Blackpool—but Miura’s career has been anything but. His first professional appearance came not in Japan but Brazil, where he traveled aged 15 to live his dream of playing football. While there, he played for six different clubs—including Santos and Palmeiras—before returning to Japan with Verdy Kawasaki.

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Here, he helped the club from the capital become the champions of the country four years running. His time at the club was divided by a season-long loan at Genoa—making him the first Japanese player in Serie A—where he scored in the Genoese Derby against Sampdoria.

He later played for Dinamo Zagreb, and in 2005 once again briefly left Japan, this time playing for Sydney FC on loan in the A League. He also appeared for Espolada, a Japanese professional futsal team.

His nomadic career has meant that arguably the team he served best was the Japanese national team, for whom he scored a very respectable 55 goals in 89 games before retiring in 2000.

While there’s undoubtedly some things about the bygone eras of football that we’ll never see again, very occasionally, there’s a player capable of pushing himself beyond the rest out of his love of the game.