Tryouts for Murash FC, the Japanese national team for the Kings World Cup, are held while Junichi Kato watches! | Goal.com Japan

■Daisuke Nasu also participated as a first player

The Kings League is a seven-a-side soccer tournament founded by Gerard Pique, a Barcelona legend and former Spain national team player. The King’s World Cup (KWC), a world championship in the same sport that is gaining great excitement around the world, will be held in Mexico from May 26th to June 8th.

The world championship will be attended by many famous players, including Neymar, Mario Götze, Rio Ferdinand, Eden Hazard, and tournament president Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Powerful and famous broadcasters from around the world are scheduled to gather together. Junichi Kato, a popular broadcaster from Japan, was chosen to host this World Cup.

On the 2nd of this month, the tournament headquarters announced the participation of Murash FC, which corresponds to the Japanese national team, and the appointment of Junichi Kato as the chief executive, as well as the implementation of tryouts, but less than two weeks have passed since this open call, and about 100 players aiming for the world tournament have been announced. 40 people participated.

Players included regular soccer players, players with experience playing in J Youth, members of “WINNERS” and “LISEM” who are active on YouTube, and former J-League player Daisuke Nasu. At the beginning, Mr. Kato gave words of encouragement to the participants, after which they were divided into four teams and played two sets of 15-minute matches, each half lasting one half. Loud chants of “Let’s aim for the world!” were heard, and the team engaged in intense battles and battles with their opponents that seemed impromptu.

When I spoke to Mr. Nasu, who is currently active as a YouTuber, he said that he participated completely as an individual this time. His true intention was, after all, his feelings for the representative.

“My dream of playing for the national team came to an end after the Olympics (U-23).Although my active career was long, I always had the desire to shine on the world stage.I retired and returned to J3. “I had a strong desire to represent Japan in the world one more time. This time, I had a chance like this, so I decided to try it from the beginning,” he said. .

■Mr. Kato feels the intensity of soccer firsthand

Yuki Nagao

Mr. Kato, who had been watching the tryouts at the venue, said, “It was my first time watching soccer up close.I thought it was hard because they had to run so much.They were so loud and so intense, it was like a martial art.” I expressed my impressions. Mr. Kato live-streamed the tryout, which lasted about three hours, on his Twitch channel, and the number of simultaneous viewers was a record 43,000 people, showing his interest and expectations.

For this tryout, judges with JFA coaching qualifications carefully checked each item entrusted to them by the Spanish headquarters. The results of this screening will be sent to Spain, and the successful applicants will be announced at a later date. Once the Japanese national team is selected, they will meet regularly to practice.