Kazuyoshi Miura breaks every record by playing professional football in the sixth decade of his life and in about a month will turn 53 years old when he was born on February 26, 1967, in Shizuoka, Japan. And it may be that footballers of his age do so from the position of coach or agent, but the "King of Kazo" (hence his nickname) continues to sweat and wear soccer shoes. And at the professional level, in a team that in 2020 will compete in the first category of Japanese football.
In the country of "samba"
Kazojoshi Miura's football journey began in the distant 1982, when he, at the age of 15, searched for his "Ithaca" in Brazil. He did so, after his initial wanderings, he signed a professional contract with Santos in 1986. He competed in several teams from the country of "samba", most famously Palmeira and Curitiba, before he decided to return.
With Yomiuri FC or otherwise Verdy Kawasaki (today's Tokyo Verdy) he fought from 1990 to 1998, winning four Japanese leagues. His loan to Genoa in the 1994-95 season made him the first Japanese footballer to play in the Italian championship and was again in Europe in 1999 on behalf of Dinamo Zagreb, winning the Croatian championship.
Top year of his career
In the same period (1990-2000) he also wore the national team jersey, with 89 appearances and 55 goals (the second highest scorer in national history). He won the Asian Cup with the Samurai in 1992, and the highlight of his career was in 1993, when he became a top player in Asia. However, he stayed out of the 1998 World Cup despite being out of the qualifying phase with 14 of his team's 31 goals.
At the beginning of the new millennium, he found himself in Kyoto Purple Sanga and Vissel Kobe, and when he first signed with Yokohama FC in 2005, many believed he would not hang his shoes. After all, Kazuyoshi Miura was already 38 years old. Who would have thought that 15 years later he would still play football, and even renew his contract, having broken one record behind another.
The oldest scorer
In March 2017, when he was already 50, he became the oldest player in the history of professional football, surpassing the emblematic Stanley Matthews, while a few days later he became the oldest scorer. In recent years, every January, he makes a one-year extension of his contract, as he did this year. For how much longer will he do it? As long as his legs and especially his soul can withstand.
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