Kenichi with his players in Aduana Stars, Ghana. (Kenichi Yatsuhashi Facebook page)
“The beauty of football: I get to travel, meet many people, experience many cultures, eat different foods and see different things. Football is beautiful from that perspective.”
Kenichi Yatsuhashi is a Japanese football coach whose incredible journey in football has taken him from his hometown in the Aichi Prefecture in central Japan all across the globe. After moving as a teenager to Brazil to pursue a shortly-lived playing career, Yatsuhashi would eventually move to New York City to study and ultimately start his coaching career. That career would turn into an adventure across the world, with stints in exotic footballing destinations like Kyrgyzstan, Ghana, Nigeria, Cambodia and the Philippines. We had the pleasure of chatting with Coach Keni Yatsuhashi, who is currently based in Kyoto, about his career so far and his aspirations for the future.
So how does a 17-year old from Japan end up moving to Brazil to pursue a football career?
Back when I was playing football in Japan, there was no professional league. My father asked me if I wanted to go abroad to play and gave me the options of Germany or Brazil. For no particular reason, I chose Brazil. Fortunately, the exchange rate between the Japanese and Brazilian currencies allowed me to stay for a long time in Brazil. It cost me about $50 a month to buy my food and live in Brazil and I stayed for two and a half years.
Did you experience culture shock when you first moved to Brazil? Was it difficult to communicate with players coaches and just people in general in everyday life?
Of course, I experienced culture shock but I was young enough to adapt quickly. It was an eye-opening experience which was good for my personal development. Communicating with the coaches and players was difficult at the beginning, but they did their best to communicate with me, and I did my best to listen and try to talk to them. I was able to say a few simple words on the pitch but off the pitch, it was very difficult for me. Actually, I regret not putting more effort to learn the language, but I had a good experience.
You spent over 20 years living then coaching in the US. How did you end up on the other side of the world coaching in Central Asia?
I left the USA in 2011 and I made some phone calls and sent emails to all the networks I had at the time. There were a few places where I got responses: India and Japan. I went to the interview in India but I did not get the job. In Japan, I had several opportunities to be interviewed and one of them was with the Japan Football Association. They gave me an opportunity to work in Central Asia as one of their Dispatch coaches. I ended up going to Kyrgyzstan and I worked there as the Technical Director for the FA and coach of the Under-16 national team. It was a good two years, I did my best in a country where it was extremely difficult to develop good football, but it was a very good experience for me.
A difficult but very good experience. Kenichi in Kyrgyzstan. (Kenichi Yatsuhashi Facebook page)
After a year in Qatar, you eventually moved to Ghana to coach Hearts of Oak. How did that opportunity come about?
After one year of working at the Aspire Academy in Qatar, which was an extremely important and valuable experience for me working alongside top European youth coaches, I decided to move on to coach a professional senior team. I contacted many agents and one of them brought my CV to Accra Hearts of Oak, one of the two biggest clubs in Ghana and CAF Champions League winners in 2000. I made the final shortlist of three coaches and I was finally appointed in October 2015. I worked there for 8 months and I did very well in my opinion. We were always first or second in the table, but when we dropped to fourth on goal differential, despite being level on points with the second-placed team, they decided let me go. However, it was a great experience for me.
Off the pitch, what was life like in Ghana?
Life in Ghana was very, very interesting. As soon as I was appointed as head coach of Accra Hearts of Oak, I became a public figure. I couldn’t even walk the streets like normal people do, many people stopped me take photos with them. I couldn’t walk one or two blocks without being stopped to take photos. I didn’t have a social life, I learned how to deal with it, and I spent the majority of my personal time inside my small hotel room. It was difficult but it was the life that I wanted. It was more about the excitement of coaching one of the biggest clubs in Africa, and the pressure that came with it. I loved the pressure, I perform better under higher pressure, so I mostly focused on doing my job well. The media was also all over me, some of them had a very unique motive to write articles that were not true, but it was something I had to deal with and it was a very interesting time for me dealing with it.
One of the most stressful jobs in African football. Kenichi in his days as Hearts of Oak’s coach (Kenichi Yatsuhashi Facebook page)
You also coached in Nigeria with Ifeanyi Ubah and Ghana again more recently with International Allies, what do you take away from your overall coaching experience in Africa?
I went to Nigeria to coach Ifeanyi Ubah because my strength coach from Hearts of Oak, Yaw Preko, asked me to come with him. He was offered to become the assistant there provided I would become the head coach. I spent about 5 weeks of pre-season and I literally ran away from there for the safety of my life. It was a remote village, the club was owned by a mega-rich oil king and there was lots of money flying all over the place. My safety was at stake.
Surprisingly, the football itself in the domestic league in Nigeria was of a lower standard than in Ghana. There was more obvious corruption and match-fixing in Nigeria than there was in Ghana. Even though match-fixing and corruption was a problem in both countries, in Nigeria it was so obvious.
I can only speak about West Africa, and not the continent of Africa: there are a lot of talented players in West Africa but the environment is very difficult for good football to be developed. The level of competition in West Africa, for many reasons, issues and challenges, is not catching up to not only European standards but also other parts of Africa. I had experience with Aduana Stars in the group stage of the CAF Confederation where we travelled to Ivory Coast, DR Congo and Morocco. The standard in Ivory Coast and DR Congo was a lot higher, let alone the standard in Morocco, which was a very high level compared domestically to Ghana. I hope that changes, but I think changing the environment, society and culture will be very difficult.
When most people think of a foreign coach, they think of a European or a South American coach. Do you feel that Asian coaches are looked down upon or not respected enough? Especially in Africa where almost all foreign coaches come from Europe.
Surely, I did not get the same respect as European coaches, or South American coaches for that matter. There was a lot of backlash when I was appointed and some journalists criticized me even before my first training. Some of them said I was an automobile engineer, not a coach. They asked me questions such as whether I got a degree in engineering in school, trying to label more as not a football coach. It was quite the experience. I responded to them that I understand what they’re saying and how they feel, it was my first pro senior team and I was long time youth coach but I let my work on the pitch. I let the results on the pitch speak. I let people watch what I do on the pitch and had them understand that I was more than capable than what they were expecting.
Would you be open to a return to Africa if the opportunity presented itself?
I would be open to go back to West Africa only if it was a national team coaching job. I would be open to going back to other parts of Africa to coach either to top tier clubs playing in a competition in continental competition or national team jobs.
Where would you like to coach where you haven't coached before?
I would definitely like to work in Europe during my coaching career but I’m open to many possibilities. The world is big, there are many places I haven’t been to or worked in, so I’m open to go anywhere in the world. That’s the beauty of football: I get to travel, meet many people, experience many cultures, eat different foods and see different things. Football is beautiful from that perspective.
On the topic of travelling and food, what is the best meal you've? Similarly, what was the most ‘difficult’ place to eat?
There are many dishes that I liked, for example, the seafood I ate in Santos in Brazil was fantastic. Also, the food I ate in places like the Philippines and Cambodia. However, the best food I ate was “Plov” in Osh, Kyrgyzstan. It’s an Uzbek dish, a rice dish cooked with goat and they don’t use anything but the fat of the goat to cook it. It was fantastic! I would love to go back there one day to eat it but not sure if I’ll ever get the chance to.
There are differences in the cuisines in each country, I like to adapt to local cuisine wherever I go. When I was in Cambodia, one of the local cuisines was deep-fried insects. It’s gross when you look at it but when I tried it, it was delicious. I don’t think there are any places where I had any difficulty eating local dishes.
One final question to end the interview: if someone wrote a book about Kenichi Yatsuhashi, what would the title be?
I’m not sure. My career is nowhere near close to the end, I still have a lot of time to think about it before someone can write a book about me.
“My career is far from ending. I am open to go anywhere in the world”. Kenichi with his staff in Internationals Allies, Ghana (Kenichi Yatsuhashi Facebook page)
Walid Bylka is an Algerian and African football journalist with DZFoot and a regular contribute to BabaGol. You can follow him on Twitter at @bylka613_