Accelerated improvement by young Japanese and South Korean players is encouraging top European clubs to sign them directly from their domestic teams, rather than wait for them to cut their teeth ina lesser European league. As a result, the J-League and K-League clubs those players left behind are foraging for players in Australia and other countries where teams pay less than their more powerfulAsian competitors.
In the final days before the close of the European transfer window Jan. 31, South Korean midfielder Koo Ja-cheol left the K-league to sign for 2009German Bundesliga club Wolfsbu rg, Japanese strikerShinji Okazaki joined Stuttgart, and Yuto Nagatomo was loaned to European champion Inter Milan.
The shift in dynamics is illustrated by Manchester United’sSouth Korean winger Park J-Sung, who played two seasons in the Netherlands for PSV Eindhoven before moving to United in 2005 at the age of 24. By contrast, compatriot andnamesake Park Chu-young signed for Monaco in 2008 from FC Seoul, the same club that sold Lee Chung-yong to Bolton in 2009 and Ki Sung-yongto Glasgow Celtic last year. All three players were 23 or under when they arrived in Europe.
Okazaki is the sixth Japanese player to head to Germany since the 2010 World Cup. Last October,he scored Japan’s goal when it beat Argentina, 1-0, in Saitama. He left Shimizu S-Pulse, whose coach, Afshin Ghotbi, is a former assistant coach with the South Korea nationalteam. “Simply, the South Koreans and Japanese are developing better youth players and are far ahead of rest of Asia in producing talent capable of playing at the highest level,” saysGhotbi, who coached native Iran to the 2011 Asian Cup quarterfinals last month.