Abstract
Asian activities of the Japan Football Association (JFA) aim at co-existence and co-prosperity through active exchange of talent among Asian countries. However, there are various problems in the coaching environment, which have been more difficult than expected. This study investigated the state of the coaching environment of expatriate soccer coaches, based on the FIFA ranking of the country: higher, middle, and lower. The results indicated that the number of coaching staff members in both national and youth teams in Asian countries was much less than that in Japan. Moreover, the number of countries having football pitches was 17, that using pitches made of natural turf was 11, that having more than 2.5 pitches was 4, that using more than two pairs of goals was 7, that having pitches with the maximum seating capacity of over 300 was 5, that having pitches with lighting equipment was 12, and that having clubhouses was 13. If the competitive ability of the Japanese national team was regarding as 100%, the competitive abilities of the national teams of the Asian countries assessed by expatriate coaches were as follows: in higher ranking teams: skills 56.3%, tactics 49.4%, in middle ranking teams: skills 51.3%, tactics 30.0%, and in lower ranking teams: skills 33.8%, tactics 31.3%. The above results indicate that tactics of players in middle and lower FIFA ranking teams are very different from those of Japanese players.
