This morning I am going to report on an interesting interview about Kyogo in the Japanese media. In this article, I will focus on his personality based using his words and those of his mother, to show my insight into important elements that have had significant impact on his performance and development of his career as a footballer. The following is what Kyogo Furuhashi and his mother said in an interview in the Japanese media…
Kyogo seems to have developed a habit of asking his mother, Miwa Furuhashi, for feedback and advice about his own performance every time after games dating back to when he was a college student. His mother, Miwa, explains…
Miwa Furuhashi: “One day, Kyogo said this to me, who had never played football, “You’ve been watching my play since I was a child. So you know the difference between my play today and my usual ones, don’t you?” He put pressure on me by saying that. From that day on, I’ve been trying to tell him frankly what I thought when I watch him play.”
Kyogo: “I played for the first time as a selected player when I was a first-year college student, but I gradually lost my humility and misunderstood, thinking that I was a great player. And my stamina had declined and I was only playing selfishly.”
Miwa: “It was just around that time that Kyogo started asking me for advice. Kyogo said to me like this. “When my play is bad, please honestly point out that it’s bad for me. In order for me not to be satisfied with my own play, you need to tell me that.” He was told by various people, “Your play is worse than before.” I remember that it was the trigger for him when he was told so by them.”
Kyogo’s mother seems to have been recording his play as a video since he was young, always going to watch the game on behalf of his father when his father couldn’t go to watch his game due to work reasons. Maybe that’s why his mother can understand the change in Kyogo’s performance. Also, Kyogo and Miwa said as follows…
Kyogo: “When I went to college, people around me were always very kind to me, so I was complacent about the environment. As my mother said, I’ve been getting advice and feedback from my mother and my younger brother every time I play in games since that day. I trust their words very much, and of course I continue to do it even after I joined Celtic.
“My mother said to me, “When I has been watching your play at Celtic, I thought that you haven’t been hitting middle-range shot lately, right?” So actually I was able to score a goal by shooting from middle range in the next game.”
Miwa: “Yeah, he told me about the goal after the game by phone, “In that situation, I usually choose passing the ball, but I remembered that you told me to hit middle range shot, so I took the plunge and did it. Then I was able to score a goal.”‘
“What he said made me happy. I thought I might have said something good to him, and as long as he asks me for advice from now on, if I notice anything about his play, I will try to tell him frankly. He’s good at bringing out this feedback from me. Also it’s wonderful that he has this flexible and humble way of thinking.”
It can be seen that his family’s words and his own humble attitude were indispensable factors in the background the helped Kyogo have such a tremendous performance for Celtic last season.
The following is my insight. If you compare all goals that Kyogo scored at Vissel Kobe with the video of his 34 goals scored at Celtic this season, you will notice that his scoring pattern has changed greatly.
➡ 19 right foot
⬅ 14 left foot
👤 1 header🙆♂️ @Kyogo_Furuhashi‘s 34 goals in 2022/23! 🙆♂️#CelticFC🍀
— Celtic Football Club (@CelticFC) June 8, 2023
Vissel Kobe and Celtic have very different tactics when attacking. At Vissel Kobe, Kyogo received a pass directly from a central midfielder to score many goals, but at Celtic, there were more cases where he received a cross from side and scored with one touch.
It is never easy for a footballer to adapt to changes in tactics and football style according to each team he plays for. But Kyogo was able to fully adapt to those changes by evolving his play as a striker and winger.
I guess that his humble attitude made these things possible. As a basis of my insight, I will introduce some of things he worked on at Vissel Kobe.
Also, one of his efforts was that he was desperately studying Spanish to learn various things from Iniesta and others at that time.
At Vissel Kobe, Iniesta and Villa, who learned about Kyogo’s enthusiasm for improving his own skills, gave Kyogo a lot of advice in training to maximise his potential and evolve. The Spanish that Kyogo learned helped him to communicate with them.
Iniesta said in a certain media that he was surprised by the speed of Kyogo’s development. In addition, Iniesta and Villa confirmed in an interview of Japanese media in 2019 that Kyogo will be the world class player in a few years. He is on that road right now at Celtic.
In addition to the players, there’s a person who have had a big impact on him in his career.
Juan Manuel Lillo, who worked as a manager at Vissel Kobe from 2018 to 2019, and built the current team style with Pep Guardiola as an assistant coach for Manchester City from 2020 to 2022, is also one of the person who enthusiastically coached Kyogo.
It goes without saying that Lillo’s words greatly influenced Kyogo’s playing style. Kyogo posted the following message on Twitter to Lillo, who left the team in 2019…
“It was nice to meet you. I am glad that I was able to receive guidance from you. I think I was able to grow by changing the range, quality, and way of thinking in my play. I will definitely use this experience to become a better player. I will do my best to meet you somewhere again. It was a short time, but thank you very much,” Kyogo
あなたと出会えてよかった。
あなたのもとで指導を受けれてよかった。
僕の中でのプレーの幅や質、考え方などが変わり成長できたと思います。
これからこの経験を生かして絶対にもっといい選手になります。
またどこかで会えるように頑張ります。
短い時間でしたがありがとうございました。 pic.twitter.com/dEE7kKiPs6— Kyogo Furuhashi 古橋 亨梧 (@Kyogo_Furuhashi) April 17, 2019
With a variety of tactics and knowledge, Lillo brought and football philosophy that had never existed in Japan to Vissel Kobe and transformed the team. Not only that, but with his guidance, some players have evolved dramatically in a short period of time, and one of them was Kyogo.
No matter how talented a player is, there are many cases that evolution stops by losing humility. So I’m sure that as long as Kyogo continues to be humble, he will continue to evolve.
And Legends always see his development and evolution. I’m looking forward to seeing his performances for Celtic in Champions League and Scottish Premiership in the new season.
Yatao
My bio and my latest articles as a Author of The Celtic Star team✍️ Check it out from the link below. Hail Hail🍀@CelticStarMag https://t.co/x8jO5AXgDs pic.twitter.com/ZgLzLyK7Yr
— Yatao (@yataoda4) May 15, 2023
