King Kazu

Ladies and gentlemen,

Miura Kazuyoshi has officially become the oldest player ever to feature in a professional soccer game when he started in the 1-1 draw between his team Yokohama FC and V-Varen Nagasaki in the J2 League, Japan's second-tier professional association football league. At the age of fifty years and seven days, he surpassed the previous record held by English legend Sir Stanley Matthews from 1965 by two days.

Miura Kazuyoshi's career is quite impressive. He went to Brazil at the age of fifteen in 1982 to become a professional soccer player which wasn't possible in Japan at that time and played for eight differents clubs over there, including legendary teams such as Santos and Palmeiras. He also played for Genoa in 1994 and 1995 and Zagreb in 1999 in Europe. Miura was named the first J. League Most Valuable Player in 1993 and became the first Japanese Asian Footballer of the Year in 1993. He represented the Japanese national team eighty-nine times between 1990 and 2000 and scored an impressive fifty-five goals. In 1997, he scored an incredible eighteen goals in nineteen games for the national squad. Since 2005, Miura plays for Yokohama FC.

Miura won numerous individual, club and international awards and titles. Among his biggest successes are the 1992 AFC Asian Cup with the Japanese national team, four consecutive J League Cup titles from 1991 to 1994 with Tokyo Verdy and the Croatian Prva HNL league title in 1998-1999 with Dinamo Zagreb, then called Croatia Zagreb.

I think being a professional sportsman at such an age is an absolutely impressive accomplishment. Miura Kazuyoshi deserves our attention and praise and he can be seen as a role model for his unique perseverance and strength.