2016 Volume 26 Issue 2 Pages 2_315-2_321
We investigated the achievement situation after the entrance into the club of rookie players who belong to the Waseda University Association Football Club and those players who achieved excellent results in the Japanese university football league.
We collected information about the situation of the hometown team in which a member grew up, the university entrance route, and the game appearances. The period covered in the investigation included a first term (1991-2000) and a latter period (2005-2014). 18 players with dominance of total hours of appearance in each year (until 1995, 16 players) were defined as the main force, and the production frequency of main force players was analyzed for every hometown team. In one season of registration, the number of cases where main force players were produced typically totaled one person and, at most, reached four.
The results of the study showed that, among the 1,418 cases studied in the 20 years, among the 348 cases of admission based on recommendations, the number of those who became main force players was 230.
The Club got many rookies from admissions based on recommendations and from admissions from affiliated strong schools and J-Youth high school football clubs. But although cases of entrance from affiliated schools were numerous, a problem was found that in the Waseda Football Club there was a low rate of these players becoming main force players.
In the first term, members who entered on the basis of recommendations didn’ t play in the main force, and members who entered on the basis of affiliated school entrance and the general entrance admission played the active parts. On the other hand, in the latter period there were increased cases of entrance from private high schools and J-Youth Club, following the increase of the limit of students admitted to the university, and increased numbers of these players in the main force.
The results showed that the number of the university-graduate J-Leaguers who join a J-Club is increasing in Japan, and that the cases in which universities with strong soccer teams get rookies from J-Youth Clubs and from high schools through the admission recommendation system is increasing, showing a change in the player acquisition method.
