Doing the 92 is Daniel Storey’s odyssey to every English football league club in a single season. The best way to follow his journey and read all of the previous pieces is by subscribing here
It is 11.30am on a Saturday morning, and at the front of the upper tier of Loftus Road’s Bhatia Stand, a group of six young Korean men are excitedly gathered holding the national flag of the Republic of Korea. A hundred yards away, on the front row of the Stan Bowles stand, someone else is affixing an identical flag to the low wall.
They are waiting for a sight of Yang Min-hyeok, an 18-year-old attacking midfielder on loan at Queens Park Rangers from Tottenham Hotspur. Yang has only played a handful of Championship matches this season and will not get off the bench today, so the group have made sure to get here in time for the warm-up.
When QPR take the lead against Championship leaders Leeds United, the goal is a superb curled finish from the wide left edge of the penalty area. Its scorer is Koko Saito, a 23-year-old Japanese winger without a senior international cap. He’s also on loan, from Lommel in Belgium. Saito has been one of the stars of QPR’s season.
In Leeds’ midfield is Ao Tanaka, an established senior Japan international. In the subsequent few days, Tanaka will fly back home and be on the pitch as Japan become the first non-host nation to secure their place at the 2026 World Cup.
Because Leeds have bigger budgets than their hosts, Tanaka was a permanent signing from Fortuna Dusseldorf. He has been one of the most consistent midfielders in the EFL this season and he still only cost £3m.
In the week leading up to the fixture, broadcast live in Sky Sports’ highest-profile Saturday afternoon slot, Saito visited the only Japanese school in London, coincidentally located in Acton, less than three miles from Loftus Road. He met Japanese students, many of whom are from expat families, posing for selfies, signing autographs and answering questions.
The aim of The Japanese School is “developing students who can learn on their own and live strongly in an energetic and international society”. For Saito, QPR is a little like that too.
He left home in 2021 for Europe while still a teenager because coaches and scouts believed he could thrive there. Everything since is a learning process: Belgium, Netherlands, west London.
This season, there are 12 Japanese or Korean players in the Championship. That becomes 15 when you include Birmingham City, top of League One on Championship budgets.
In the Championship, where eight different clubs have a representative in their first-team squad, there are more Japanese players than those from Spain, Belgium or Brazil.
A mini revolution is taking place. Last summer alone (as well as Saito, Yang and Tanaka) Blackburn signed Yuki Ohashi, Bristol City signed Yu Hirakawa, Stoke signed Tatsuki Seko, Swansea signed Eom Ji-sung and Cardiff signed Ryotaro Tsunoda.
QPR 2-2 Leeds United
- Game no.: 78/92
- Miles: 238
- Cumulative miles: 14,610
- Total goals seen: 204
- The one thing I’ll remember in May: The chant from the Leeds United fans to QPR’s Jack Colback, when he stepped out of the shade.
The football world has got smaller, thanks to the rise in data and video analysis within scouting processes.
Higher-end EFL clubs, who have the budgets to invest in these tools but are seeking undervalued markets in which they can identify talent that provide worth on the pitch and potentially be sold for a profit, increasingly see East Asia’s two strongest leagues as an under-tapped resource.
An outdated stereotype has been gradually eroded. Once there would have been significant doubt in the minds of managers about the physical suitability of East Asian players to cope with EFL football.
The Championship – shorter passing, pressing, buildup play, designed moves from back to front – has changed immeasurably. As Ange Postecoglou was at pains to point out when Celtic manager, every individual is different.
But watch Tanaka and Saito for even five minutes and the idea of their strengths not fitting in is risible. Certainly there is no longer any doubt about technical quality. That too would be nonsensical given that, at the last World Cup, Japan beat Spain and Germany and South Korea beat Portugal.
The other stereotype is that clubs buy players from East Asia to boost their global brand appeal. It is more of a half-truth than a myth: no club is solely signing any player, who they believe not to be good enough, to fuel merchandising sales.
But then it’s undeniable that it engineers a positive bounce. All of the Korean party in the Bhatia Stand are clutching a bag from the club shop.
A European pathway has founded this movement. Saito came from Lommel, Tanaka from Fortuna. In Germany, agents had established strong relationships with East Asian clubs.
In Belgium, an ever closer connection: Sint-Truiden developed some of Japan’s best overseas players in recent years – Daichi Kamada, Wataru Endo and Takehiro Tomiyasu. Sint-Truiden are owned by DMM.com, a Japanese firm.
There’s also a practical reason for a rise in popularity. Brexit ended the free movement of people of European Union nationalities to the UK, introducing a selection-based qualification system.
In football terms, a player signing from outside Britain needed to reach 15 points on a Home Office criteria list that included international caps and selling club. Without sufficiently meeting those criteria, a club must apply for a governing body exemption (GBE). These GBEs are limited to four per club.
Put simply, it is as easy to sign a player from Japan or South Korea as France or Spain and those players who have European experience, plus are involved within their nation’s international set-up, are particularly attractive.
This preference for experience points to another unusual trend here. While Championship clubs typically seek younger players with more room to develop and grow in value, the majority of the recent Japanese arrivals in the Championship have come fully formed.
Look again at that list from last summer: Ohashi (28), Tsunoda (25), Tanaka (25), Seko (26), Saito (25). Tatsuhiro Sakamoto at Coventry is 28. Daiki Hashioka at Luton is 25. Ryo Hatsuse at Sheffield Wednesday is 27.
“It is a definite pattern and it is noticeable that, as a result, many are coming in and doing well right off the bat,” says Asian football expert John Duerden.
“That must make Championship clubs think. Blackburn signed Ohashi in July and three weeks later were back in Japan trying to sign Ryo Germain.
“Asian players have tended to break into the first teams relatively late compared to Europe, though this is changing. The fact that Japan has a top-class youth development system may play a part in this.
“Also, as more and more J1 League players head overseas, there are plenty of playing opportunities at home for those coming through to fill those gaps. Young players are getting more opportunities in the J1 League to play at a good level so perhaps don’t feel the need to go to Europe early.”
Another pattern is the type of player signed from East Asia over the last two years. Of those 15 current Japanese and Korean players in the Championship and League One, the majority are attackers. There are three defenders in total, all full-backs, and none have been regulars in the team.
Three quick theories: 1) attacking midfielders, wide forwards and pressing midfielders may be the players that region is producing most effectively currently, 2) the success of Kaoru Mitoma at Brighton and Celtic’s Japanese attackers may have been noted by scouts, 3) next will come the defensive signings.
A symbiotic relationship is quickly being created. Japanese and South Korean players have long considered mainland Europe as a place to make their name and fame, but a greater pathway, with the EFL as a new natural home, is only likely to improve the depth of the national team pool. At the last World Cup, only four nations had older squads than Japan and South Korea.
“In the case of Japan, it is producing so many talented and technically top-class players that losing lots of players to Europe is not a big problem,” Duerden says.
“It gives younger players more opportunities. Japan’s problem is that the country is the best in Asia by some distance but has to play most of its games against Asian nations.
“The country has had an interest in helping the rest of the continent improve but standards remain erratic. Having more and more European experience helps mitigate that to some extent.”
We are still in the embryonic stage of this trend. Two seasons ago in the Championship and League One, there was only one representative from Japan and South Korea, East Asia’s two major footballing nations; now there are 15.
Every movement needs trailblazers and the form of Sakamoto at Coventry and development of Bae Jun-ho at Stoke (both of whom signed in 2023) persuaded other clubs to follow. The class of 2024, including Saito, will be instructive.
Because it’s hard to see how this doesn’t keep growing. There are so many Japanese and Korean players who are available at low cost and would improve the squads of Championship clubs, either from their own nation leagues or via a stepping stone in Europe.
The market exists and is still relatively underexplored. As every club fights for even a marginal advantage, that exploration is happening in real time.
Daniel Storey has set himself the goal of visiting all 92 grounds across the Premier League and EFL this season. You can follow his progress via our interactive map and find every article (so far) here
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