Unbeatable Mind

By Maya Yoshida

‘Resilience can give you strength to keep moving forwards when you are caught in the rain or a storm, and keep you continuing on your journey through life. And it is a strength which resides in everyone.’

Maya Yoshida, one of Southampton FC’s most admired players, is well known for his sense of humour on the field. However, underneath the convivial public persona is a man with unrivalled ambition, resilience and strength of character.

Unbeatable Mind reveals the secrets behind Maya’s success and how he became a favourite of football fans across the globe. Recounting his stunning career trajectory, this book provides inspirational guidance on how to overcome obstacles and thrive in any competitive arena.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins UK
• Release date: May 17, 2018
• ISBN: 9780008289348

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COPYRIGHT

HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2018

FIRST EDITION

© Maya Yoshida 2018

Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2018

Cover photograph © Colin Bell 2018

A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

Maya Yoshida asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

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Source ISBN: 9780008289331

Ebook Edition © May 2018 ISBN: 9780008289348

Version: 2018-09-13

CONTENTS

COVER

TITLE PAGE

COPYRIGHT

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 1

YOUNGEST SON RISING

CHAPTER 2

FIRST PROFESSIONAL VOYAGE

CHAPTER 3

MOTHERLAND OF FOOTBALL

CHAPTER 4

BATTLE AGAINST ADVERSITY

CHAPTER 5

ARMOUR OF FORTITUDE

CHAPTER 6

SAMURAI RESILIENCE

EPILOGUE

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

INTRODUCTION

On 24 August 2017 I opened a new chapter in my life as a Southampton player when I signed a new three-year contract with the club.

I felt rejuvenated. On Southampton’s official website the announcement of my new contract was accompanied by a photo of me with Mr Les Reed, the club’s vice chairman, smiling and shaking each other’s hand.

In truth, the vice chairman and my agent had been locked in a heated discussion until the very last minute in our final negotiation, which was supposed to be a formality, and my presence was required ‘only to sign on the dotted line’, according to my agent. Sitting next to him, I was actually thinking, ‘This is so not what I expected …’, although I also have to admit that a situation like this is not unusual in the world of professional football. Business is business.

The three-month-long negotiation came to a conclusion and a new contract, which had always been the first priority for both the club and myself, was finally agreed. It was, in fact, my second new contract here at this club on the south coast of England. I was delighted that I could continue my journey as a Southampton player and try to better myself through all the challenges we continued to face together. Not only signing, but also announcing the new contract on my 29th birthday, was the best present I could possibly have asked for.

Playing in the Premier League had been my dream ever since I made up my mind to become a professional footballer in my early teens. It was also one of the goals I was audacious enough to believe would eventually be achieved. With the 2017/18 season being the sixth in my Premier League career, I honestly feel, as I said through the club’s website when my new contract was announced, ‘Southampton is my home.’ That was my sincere first thought.

Then I received another ‘offer’, this time from a British publisher. It was shortly after I began my sixth Premier League season as a Southampton centre-back, resolved to make it the fifth consecutive top-10 finish for the club. In England the summer transfer window for a player usually closes at the end of August. The market is always open for authors, though, and I had no reason not to listen to what they had to offer.

The offer was, as it turned out, from one of the major publishers in the United Kingdom. Just by taking a quick look at their authors’ list in the sports non-fiction category, I could see all those big names, including David Beckham and Frank Lampard, with whom I had dreamed to be on the same field when I was a kid. And now, here was an opportunity to put my name onto the same list as them.

Even though the book was explained to me as a joint project with the publisher’s Japan office, to my Japanese mind it felt like I would become the author of a ‘foreign book’. It is true that it has been more than eight years since I moved abroad, so I am used to being away from Japan. I could add that I am now quite comfortable communicating in English. As an author, I already have some experience publishing my books in my native country and, at one time, even joked that I rather fancied a quality post-playing life living on my book royalties. But still, publishing a book in English in the United Kingdom sounded a ‘tough ask’ to me. It was as if I would have the Premier League of publishing to prove myself in, as well as the real Premier League.

Then an editor at the publisher said to me, ‘Don’t worry. You have resilience, Maya!’

‘Ri-zi-li-ens?’ I couldn’t even spell the word in my head at first. There seem to be various meanings in Japanese for this word, such as gyakkyo-ryoku (capacity to recover from adversity), orenai-kokoro (unbroken mind), fukugen-ryoku (ability to spring back into shape) or taikyu-ryoku (durability).

My interpretation is makenai-chikara – strength of unbeatable mind.

Bingo! As soon as this interpretation came to my mind, a light bulb was switched on brightly in my head (in the head of Maya Yoshida the author, I should say) because this particular strength is the essence of ‘Maya power’. That’s the quality that has carried me through, all the way from my childhood to the present day as a Premier League defender, striving to improve to reach a higher standard, sometimes feeling low in a tough environment, sometimes having luck on my side to break through, via the city of Nagoya in Japan and of Venlo in the Netherlands, all the way to Southampton.

Until I received this publishing opportunity, I’d never said this English word ‘resilience’ out loud but it has always been inside me, I realised. The more I thought about it, the more I became sure of it. I also started to believe that I could convey my feelings, thoughts and stories well enough to readers in both the United Kingdom and Japan through a book, if it had ‘resilience’ as its underlying theme.

Needless to say, writing a book itself is not easy. I like writing, but finishing a book under the pressure of an approaching deadline is another matter. I was sure that I would sometimes need to fight off drowsiness as I sat in front of my computer. But I was also sure that my ‘strength of unbeatable mind’ would once again carry me through this new challenge.

It was a huge opportunity that I could not and should not miss – to make my début in the field of English publishing at the top level. There was no time to hesitate, I decided in the end.

Yes, let’s do this! I made one of the biggest decisions of my life. Well, that may be exaggerating a bit, but nonetheless I signed on a publishing contract that was also put in front of me at the beginning of my sixth year at Southampton.

There was one specific request from the publisher’s Japan office about the direction of this book. They wanted me to see myself as a samurai, a warrior of a high social rank in eleventh- to nineteenth-century Japan, but with a size-five football at my feet instead of a shiny sword in my hands. So, to be more precise, the theme of the book should be ‘samurai resilience’.

My initial reaction to this was that there seemed to be a slight difference between what Western people think of as a samurai and what we Japanese do. When I think of a samurai, what comes to my mind is someone prepared, if necessary, to kill himself by committing an act of hara-kiri – cutting his stomach open to die in order to avoid dishonour.

On the other hand, I am under the impression that people in Europe see a samurai in the image of a true warrior: a brave fighter who never gives up and keeps on going till the very end. It is an image of someone with incredible toughness, whose every deed is fortified by resilience. This Western view of a samurai, as I understand it, is also quite different from someone who loves cracking jokes, the image I project in the ‘Maya world’, if I may call it that – the world I have depicted in my blog and previous books.

In the football world, a defender, especially a centre-back, can be an easy target for criticism because a single mistake made in 90 minutes could cost the game for his team. Some might say it is a thankless position because a centre-back won’t be in the spotlight as often as a striker is but will be criticised for one costly mistake, even if it was made after 89 minutes and 59 seconds of an otherwise faultless performance. It may be true and I won’t deny it. But to me, getting criticised is part of the job as a professional defender.

My experience as a centre-back, good and bad, makes me appreciate even more all the support and encouragement I have received over the years. I cannot thank everyone enough. I know people sometimes feel frustrated, or even gutted, after watching my performance, but you ‘Maya supporters’ still cheer me no matter what. That unconditional support has strengthened the unbeatable mind that I have.

If I succeed in passing on some seed of resilience that I have found in my life so far to my supporters, or to people who have picked up this book because of their passion for Southampton FC, the Japan national football team, the Premier League or football itself, I will be a happy author.

Resilience can give you strength to keep moving forwards when you are caught in the rain or a storm, and keep you continuing on your journey through life. And it is a strength that resides in everyone. If you come to realise that, it will be a reward that I genuinely treasure as the author of this book.

CHAPTER 1

YOUNGEST SON RISING

The origin: strength of the youngest

If I am to talk about resilience, I must start with my childhood in a city called Nagasaki where I was born, on the island of Kyushu located about 600 miles south-west of Tokyo. That is because one of the resilient traits I was born with is the ‘strength of the youngest’. I can hear some people saying, ‘What?’ and I certainly understand that there is no such definition for the word ‘resilience’ in any available dictionaries. But believe me, ‘strength of the youngest’ is a definition to be found in the dictionary of Maya Yoshida.

I started playing football for fun just before I was enrolled at a Japanese elementary school (Year 1 to Year 7 in the UK). I was the youngest of three brothers in my family and started playing in a kickabout with my two brothers and their friends. The J.League (Japan Professional Football League) started when I was around five years old, and was initially just a single division – although it has since grown to have three tiers. My brothers, who were already in their impressionable early teens by then, totally immersed themselves in the ‘soccer boom’ sweeping through the country, triggered by the creation of the much-anticipated domestic professional league.

All my brothers did whenever they had free time was play football. It was football during the lunch break, football after school and football at the weekend. Naturally, that meant it was the same for their youngest brother. It was football day in, day out for me, too. In my mind, having fun meant kicking a ball with them.

The city of Nagasaki back then didn’t have a local club in the J.League, so I didn’t really have a chance to watch a professional football game at a stadium. My sole live experience was when Verdy Kawasaki (now called Tokyo Verdy 1969) came to a town called Isahaya located in the middle of Nagasaki Prefecture for a game. If my memory serves me right, it was a game in the Emperor’s Cup (similar to the FA Cup here in England), not a league game, but I still remember the excitement I felt in the stand on that day, watching a professional football game right in front of me for the first time in my life.

I didn’t follow any particular club or players when I was a kid. I was more a big fan of football itself, especially playing the game. In most parts of Japan baseball is the number one professional sport. However, it wasn’t because football was particularly popular in Kyushu that I was drawn to the game. There were kids playing baseball, too, in my neighbourhood.

Having said that, maybe it was significant that there wasn’t a baseball team in my elementary school, but there was a football team. Hmmm, I guess I was fortunate to be born in a football-friendly environment. Anyway, what I wanted to say was that football was around me for as long as I can remember and playing football was just a natural thing for me to do to have fun as a kid.

However, there was one problem. The lads I always enjoyed a kickabout with were my brothers and their friends. I’m seven years younger than my oldest brother and six years younger than the other one. It meant that, even though I was big for an elementary-school boy, there was no way for me to compete physically with them when they were already going to junior high school (Year 8 to Year 10).

I was always the tallest among my classmates. I was 5’ 6 when I was 12, about six inches taller than the national average for that age. I remember also that I shot up to a little over 5’ 10 in the following 12 months. But I must have been only just above four foot tall when I started playing football and I could easily be brushed aside by my brothers and their friends, who were nearly a foot taller than me. So it was only natural for me to try to outsmart the boys who were physically stronger than I was, and try to play clever in order to compete with the much bigger lads. This way of thinking was always with me from the very earliest stage of my development as a footballer.

I was always good with the ball, too, whether it was kicking or controlling it. Yes, the youngest son of the Yoshida family has always had what it takes to be a ‘player’, although he was destined to be a defender. Thankfully, my brothers didn’t really come charging at me, their little brother, at full tilt when I was on the ball. That allowed me a bit of freedom on the playground to express myself, trying to beat an opponent who was bigger than me by being clever or technical, and the fact I could show off my skills made me fall in love with football even more. Maybe that’s why if I have to name one boyhood hero of mine, it would be Dragan Stojković, also known by his nickname ‘Piksi’, who delighted the J.League crowds while I was growing up with his incredible skills in an attacking midfield role at Nagoya Grampus Eight.

Later in my development, when I started watching games from a defender’s point of view, Rio Ferdinand became one of the players that I most admired. The former Manchester United defender had much more success in his football career than his brother Anton, who is seven years younger than him. Among the former Man United defenders, there were the Neville brothers, too. Again, the achievements of older brother Gary overshadow those of the younger brother Phil, in terms of the number of trophies and medals won. But I, for one, believe that a ‘football career favours the youngest’, if such a proverb exists.

I say this because if you are the youngest brother or sister, you tend to play football with someone older, such as your siblings or their friends. That makes you aware of your particular weakness right from the start, whether it is a smaller physique or slower pace, and as a result you sometimes have to endure pain and frustration. But those experiences will toughen you up both physically and mentally, and also can lead you to compensate for your shortcomings in order to beat or stop your opponent, who is stronger or better in some departments. Therefore the youngest, in the end, has more chance to improve as a footballer and surpass his or her elders, who might have found it easy to get the better of someone younger or smaller, without having to make any extra effort, when they were young. That’s what I think, anyway.

I didn’t know it until I started writing this book, but John Terry, the former Chelsea centre-back, is an example of my belief – the younger of two brothers turned out to be more successful as a footballer. I don’t really know him personally, but from purely a centre-back’s point of view