Which leagues did the Japanese players now in Europe pass through to get where they are?
This page counts the hub leagues and the routes that were actually most common.
The period tabs filter players by when they moved to Europe.
Players48
Transfers87
Leagues24
Of which loans33
Average age at move22.6
Not shown in these charts: 4 players with no transfer history available.
182 stints shorter than 60 days are left out of the paths. This removes spells where a player was registered but did not play (for example, signed and loaned out straight away).
From which country to which
Each pair of countries is one arc. The more transfers, the thicker and brighter the arc. This map works by country. It does not separate first and second divisions, so moves within one country (for example, Belgian top flight to Belgian second tier) do not show as lines. Japan is off the map to the east. Arcs to and from Japan enter and leave at the right edge.
Arc colourTo or from JapanBetween European countriesBoth run from dark (origin) to bright (destination)
Transfers not drawn on this map: 24 (moves within one country, clubs outside Europe, and clubs whose league is unknown).
Hub leagues
The J.League is left out. Since every player here is Japanese, almost all of them start in the J.League, which would tell us nothing new.
Al-Rayyan SC 1, Fukushima United 1, Iwaki 1, Novorizontino 1
Ekstraklasa
2
3
3
46
Legia Warszawa 2, Gornik Zabrze 1
Primeira Liga
2
3
3
68
Arouca 2, Benfica 1, Portimonense 1
Challenger Pro League
3
3
2
47
Beerschot VA 1, KRC Genk II 1, RSC Anderlecht II 1
Premier League
2
3
2
107
Tottenham 2, Southampton 1
Segunda División
2
3
2
65
Las Palmas 2, Real Sociedad II 1
Japanese club (league unknown)
2
1
3
Unknown
Yamanashi Gakuin 2, Toin University 1
Eredivisie
3
2
1
55
AZ Alkmaar 1, NEC Nijmegen 1, Sparta Rotterdam 1
Ligue 1
2
2
1
71
Le Havre 1, Reims 1
Austrian Bundesliga
2
2
0
30
Red Bull Salzburg 2
Most common routes
Only the first move into Europe is counted. All Japanese origins are grouped as “From Japan”, and when a player was loaned out straight after signing, the loan club counts as the destination.
How this is counted
The table answers one question: where do players come from, and where do they go first? Second and third moves can be followed player by player in the timeline below. This is not the first transfer of a player's career. For a player who joined from university, university → J.League is the first transfer on record, which says nothing about moving to Europe. Splitting J1, J2, J3 and universities would scatter the same “from Japan to Europe” move across many rows, so the Japanese side is grouped. Moves within Japan are not counted.
When a player was loaned to another club straight after signing, the loan club counts as the destination. The data provider lists the transfer and the loan as two separate entries. Kaoru Mitoma counts as moving to Union Saint-Gilloise rather than Brighton, and Kuryu Matsuki to Göztepe rather than Southampton. Counting where the player actually played gives a truer picture of where players land.
Not in this table: 6 players whose transfer history starts at a European club, with no record of the move to Europe itself.
Do players who move young climb higher?
Players are split into three groups by their age when they moved to Europe. For each year after the move, the chart averages the level of the league they were in.
Years with fewer than 3 players are
not drawn. An average of one or two players would look like a trend.
Dot size is the number of players that year (3–21 in this chart.
Smaller dots average fewer players and swing more easily).
Line colourMoved at ≤21Moved at 22–25Moved at 26+
Player by player
One row per player, with age on the horizontal axis. Rows are sorted by age at the move to Europe, youngest first. If a bar gets brighter towards the right, the player has moved up to a stronger league.
Bars that fade out on the left are stints with no recorded joining date. For some players the data provider has no record of the move to Europe itself, and the history starts at a European club. The bar length is not the length of the stay (6 players: Keita Kosugi, Taichi Fukui, Kento Shiogai, Anrie Chase, Shio Fukuda, Leo Brian Kokubo).
Bar colour100 and above80–9960–7940–5920–3919 and belowLevel unknown
Leagues without a level (UEFA association coefficient or division unknown): J1 League, J2 League, J3 League, Japanese club (league unknown). The timeline and line chart group them as “Level unknown”.
Players67
Transfers143
Leagues32
Of which loans43
Average age at move22.5
Not shown in these charts: 4 players with no transfer history available.
182 stints shorter than 60 days are left out of the paths. This removes spells where a player was registered but did not play (for example, signed and loaned out straight away).
From which country to which
Each pair of countries is one arc. The more transfers, the thicker and brighter the arc. This map works by country. It does not separate first and second divisions, so moves within one country (for example, Belgian top flight to Belgian second tier) do not show as lines. Japan is off the map to the east. Arcs to and from Japan enter and leave at the right edge.
Arc colourTo or from JapanBetween European countriesBoth run from dark (origin) to bright (destination)
Transfers not drawn on this map: 40 (moves within one country, clubs outside Europe, and clubs whose league is unknown).
Hub leagues
The J.League is left out. Since every player here is Japanese, almost all of them start in the J.League, which would tell us nothing new.
Feyenoord 2, NEC Nijmegen 2, AZ Alkmaar 1, PSV Eindhoven 1, Sparta Rotterdam 1
Ekstraklasa
4
5
4
46
Gornik Zabrze 2, Legia Warszawa 2, Jagiellonia 1
Ligue 1
5
5
2
71
Le Havre 2, Lille 1, Reims 1, Strasbourg 1
Club outside Europe
4
2
4
Unknown
Al-Rayyan SC 1, Fukushima United 1, Iwaki 1, Novorizontino 1
Premier League
3
4
2
107
Tottenham 2, Aston Villa 1, Southampton 1
Primeira Liga
2
3
3
68
Arouca 2, Benfica 1, Portimonense 1
Challenger Pro League
3
3
2
47
Beerschot VA 1, KRC Genk II 1, RSC Anderlecht II 1
Japanese club (league unknown)
3
1
4
Unknown
Yamanashi Gakuin 2, Meiji University 1, Toin University 1
Segunda División
2
3
2
65
Las Palmas 2, Real Sociedad II 1
Most common routes
Only the first move into Europe is counted. All Japanese origins are grouped as “From Japan”, and when a player was loaned out straight after signing, the loan club counts as the destination.
How this is counted
The table answers one question: where do players come from, and where do they go first? Second and third moves can be followed player by player in the timeline below. This is not the first transfer of a player's career. For a player who joined from university, university → J.League is the first transfer on record, which says nothing about moving to Europe. Splitting J1, J2, J3 and universities would scatter the same “from Japan to Europe” move across many rows, so the Japanese side is grouped. Moves within Japan are not counted.
When a player was loaned to another club straight after signing, the loan club counts as the destination. The data provider lists the transfer and the loan as two separate entries. Kaoru Mitoma counts as moving to Union Saint-Gilloise rather than Brighton, and Kuryu Matsuki to Göztepe rather than Southampton. Counting where the player actually played gives a truer picture of where players land.
Not in this table: 8 players whose transfer history starts at a European club, with no record of the move to Europe itself.
Do players who move young climb higher?
Players are split into three groups by their age when they moved to Europe. For each year after the move, the chart averages the level of the league they were in.
Years with fewer than 3 players are
not drawn. An average of one or two players would look like a trend.
Dot size is the number of players that year (5–31 in this chart.
Smaller dots average fewer players and swing more easily).
Line colourMoved at ≤21Moved at 22–25Moved at 26+
Player by player
One row per player, with age on the horizontal axis. Rows are sorted by age at the move to Europe, youngest first. If a bar gets brighter towards the right, the player has moved up to a stronger league.
Bars that fade out on the left are stints with no recorded joining date. For some players the data provider has no record of the move to Europe itself, and the history starts at a European club. The bar length is not the length of the stay (8 players: Keita Kosugi, Taichi Fukui, Kento Shiogai, Anrie Chase, Shio Fukuda, Daisuke Yokota and 2 more).
Bar colour100 and above80–9960–7940–5920–3919 and belowLevel unknown
Leagues without a level (UEFA association coefficient or division unknown): J1 League, J2 League, J3 League, Japanese club (league unknown), Oberliga Rheinland-Pfalz/Saar. The timeline and line chart group them as “Level unknown”.
Players92
Transfers257
Leagues40
Of which loans75
Average age at move22.2
Not shown in these charts: 4 players with no transfer history available; 1 player with only domestic transfers on record.
182 stints shorter than 60 days are left out of the paths. This removes spells where a player was registered but did not play (for example, signed and loaned out straight away).
From which country to which
Each pair of countries is one arc. The more transfers, the thicker and brighter the arc. This map works by country. It does not separate first and second divisions, so moves within one country (for example, Belgian top flight to Belgian second tier) do not show as lines. Japan is off the map to the east. Arcs to and from Japan enter and leave at the right edge.
Arc colourTo or from JapanBetween European countriesBoth run from dark (origin) to bright (destination)
Transfers not drawn on this map: 72 (moves within one country, clubs outside Europe, and clubs whose league is unknown).
Hub leagues
The J.League is left out. Since every player here is Japanese, almost all of them start in the J.League, which would tell us nothing new.
League
Players involved
In
Out
Level
Main clubs
Jupiler Pro League
39
49
31
62
St. Truiden 20, Antwerp 4, Gent 4, Union St. Gilloise 4, Genk 3
Bundesliga
24
31
15
84
Borussia Mönchengladbach 6, Eintracht Frankfurt 4, SC Freiburg 4, FC St. Pauli 3, FSV Mainz 05 3
FC Gießen 1, FSV Frankfurt 1, FSV Mainz 05 II 1, Hessen Kassel 1, Stuttgart II 1
Club outside Europe
5
3
4
Unknown
Al-Rayyan SC 1, Fukushima United 1, Iwaki 1, Los Angeles Galaxy 1, Novorizontino 1
Challenger Pro League
4
4
3
47
Beerschot VA 1, KRC Genk II 1, Lommel United 1, RSC Anderlecht II 1
Most common routes
Only the first move into Europe is counted. All Japanese origins are grouped as “From Japan”, and when a player was loaned out straight after signing, the loan club counts as the destination.
How this is counted
The table answers one question: where do players come from, and where do they go first? Second and third moves can be followed player by player in the timeline below. This is not the first transfer of a player's career. For a player who joined from university, university → J.League is the first transfer on record, which says nothing about moving to Europe. Splitting J1, J2, J3 and universities would scatter the same “from Japan to Europe” move across many rows, so the Japanese side is grouped. Moves within Japan are not counted.
When a player was loaned to another club straight after signing, the loan club counts as the destination. The data provider lists the transfer and the loan as two separate entries. Kaoru Mitoma counts as moving to Union Saint-Gilloise rather than Brighton, and Kuryu Matsuki to Göztepe rather than Southampton. Counting where the player actually played gives a truer picture of where players land.
Not in this table: 10 players whose transfer history starts at a European club, with no record of the move to Europe itself.
Do players who move young climb higher?
Players are split into three groups by their age when they moved to Europe. For each year after the move, the chart averages the level of the league they were in.
Years with fewer than 3 players are
not drawn. An average of one or two players would look like a trend.
Dot size is the number of players that year (4–45 in this chart.
Smaller dots average fewer players and swing more easily).
Line colourMoved at ≤21Moved at 22–25Moved at 26+
Player by player
One row per player, with age on the horizontal axis. Rows are sorted by age at the move to Europe, youngest first. If a bar gets brighter towards the right, the player has moved up to a stronger league.
Bars that fade out on the left are stints with no recorded joining date. For some players the data provider has no record of the move to Europe itself, and the history starts at a European club. The bar length is not the length of the stay (9 players: Keita Kosugi, Taichi Fukui, Kento Shiogai, Anrie Chase, Kaito Mizuta, Shio Fukuda and 3 more).
Bar colour100 and above80–9960–7940–5920–3919 and belowLevel unknown
Leagues without a level (UEFA association coefficient or division unknown): J1 League, J2 League, J3 League, Japanese club (league unknown), Oberliga Rheinland-Pfalz/Saar, Super Liga (Serbia). The timeline and line chart group them as “Level unknown”.
Why count by league?
Counting by club spreads players across different clubs in the same league,
and patterns such as “the Belgian top flight is a hub” disappear.
So the unit here is the league. Club names appear in the
Main clubs column of the hub table and in the bar details
of the player-by-player chart.
First and second divisions are counted as separate leagues, because
“join in the second tier, then move up to the top flight” is a common
route for Japanese players.
The hub table counts every move regardless of which club number it was
in a player's career. Splitting first and second clubs would make the same
league appear on several rows and hide where players gather. The breakdown
of the first move into Europe alone is in the “Most common routes” table.
Leagues are counted as they were at the time of the transfer
Clubs are promoted and relegated. Using a club's current league would turn
a record of “moved to a second-tier club” into “moved to a top-flight club”.
So the transfer date decides which season it falls in, and the club's
league in that season is used.
Seasons start and end at different times by league (August to May in
Europe, the calendar year in the J.League). The data provider returns
start and end dates for each season, so the season is decided by date,
not by a fixed rule. For transfers between seasons, such as in the summer
window, the selling side uses the season that has just ended and the
buying side the season about to start. A player who moved in the
summer after their club was relegated is counted as leaving the top flight
they actually played in, not the second tier.
The one exception is the last bar in the player-by-player chart,
which uses the league shown on the site now. If a club was promoted or
relegated while the player was there, that change does not appear
inside the bar.
How league strength is measured
We use the UEFA association coefficient, the official ranking
built from five seasons of each country's club results in UEFA
competitions. It is not a number the site operator made up.
The association coefficient is per country, so it cannot separate a
country's first and second divisions. A factor per division is applied
on top.
Division
Factor
Tier 1
×1.0
Tier 2
×0.75
Tier 3
×0.5
Tier 4
×0.25
For example, if England's association coefficient were 100, the Premier
League would be 100, the Championship 75 and League One 50.
The division factors are fixed values, not measurements.
The data provider (API-Football) has no field for league strength, so
this value is collected separately. If it cannot be collected, the last
value that was collected is used.
Leagues outside UEFA member associations have no coefficient.
The J.League (J1, J2, J3), the Qatar Stars League and others are shown
as “Level unknown”. Leagues whose division is unknown
and leagues at the fifth tier or below get no level either.
The fifth tier and below are outside the scope of these charts.
Leagues without a level are shown as Unknown in the hub table and
in the Level unknown colour in the player-by-player
chart. Filling them with an arbitrary default would put the J.League and
the Austrian top flight at the same spot. The affected leagues are
listed below the charts.
About the colours
The chart that shows league level by shade (the bars in the
player-by-player chart) uses a single hue and separates levels by
lightness. Separating levels by hue, such as green and red, can be
impossible to tell apart for some types of colour vision.
On the map, arcs to and from Japan and arcs between European countries
use different colours. Every colour value was checked automatically for
lightness, saturation, separation under colour-vision deficiencies and
contrast with the background.
What is counted
The data is the transfer histories of the players listed on this
site, that is, Japanese players currently at clubs in the covered
European leagues. Players who have already left Europe or who play in
the J.League are not included.
Only the routes that worked out are left in these numbers.
Players who took the same route but did not stay in Europe do not
appear here.
Loans count as transfers. The only thing the provider's data
reliably tells us is whether a move was a loan; it does not consistently
separate permanent transfers from free transfers.
The bars in the player-by-player chart show league level only.
Whether a stint was a loan is not shown in the bar's look but in its
details (hover with a mouse, or tap with a finger).
Loans used to be drawn semi-transparent, but on the dark background they
looked like a darker colour and could not be told apart from a drop
in league level. Players who went on repeated loans within the same
league appeared to change level again and again when they had not.
The period tabs filter players by when they moved to Europe.
Cutting transfers by date would start routes halfway through and hide
where they began.
In “Do players who move young climb higher?”, years with fewer than
3 players are not drawn. An average of one or two
players would look like a trend. With only a few dozen players listed,
differences can still be within chance. That is why dot size
shows the number of players that year. Smaller dots average fewer
players.
Bars that fade out on the left in the player-by-player chart are
stints with no recorded joining date. For some players the provider has
no record of the move to Europe itself, and the history starts at a
European club. Dropping that stint would leave a gap in their European
career, so it is drawn in a way that makes no claim about length.
The bar length is not the length of the stay.
“Europe” here means the UEFA member associations
(55 countries and territories).
A geographical definition of Europe would leave the status of Türkiye,
Russia, Kazakhstan and others to case-by-case judgement.