Culture news From Zidane to Mbappé… Olive and Tom have inspired big names in football. Does Tsubasa have the same track record as these stars?

Culture news From Zidane to Mbappé… Olive and Tom have inspired big names in football. Does Tsubasa have the same track record as these stars?

The comparison with Lionel Messi

Captain Tsubasa (known as Olive and Tom in France) is a manga by Yoichi Takahashi. The first chapters were published in Weekly Shōnen Jump in 1981. They depict the move of Tsubasa Ohzora (Olivier Atton), a young child, saved from an accident thanks to his soccer ball. A few years later, he was inseparable from football and joined the Nankatsu City School team. Thanks to his talent and his love of sport, he takes his teammates to new horizons.

His ball skills allow him to defeat his main competitor on the archipelago: the gruff Kojiro Hyuga (Mark Landers), who will be officially compared to Cristiano Ronaldo by the author himself). Their opposing styles make them rivals of choice. The first displays an elegant style of play that one would say is innate to him. The second is illustrated as someone sparing no effort and relying on his power to force his way through. A contrast that we will find a few years later, in real life, with Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo.

A multiple-time national tournament champion, Tsubasa has nothing left to prove at his age in Japan. His coach, a former Brazilian footballer who has hung up his boots due to health concerns, keeps his promise and takes him to his country of origin. A dream that comes true for the young Japanese who cuts his teeth in the Sao Paulo club. A few years later, he arrived on the Old Continent (like Hyuga) and played… for FC Barcelona. Enough to maintain the comparison with Lionel Messi.

Beyond the Argentine player who holds the record for the number of golden balls, Tsubasa has inspired many professional football players with colossal careers. Messi but also Zidane or Neymar, some would have shared with the author their admiration for the manga. In 2018, it is also Kylian Mbappé who compares himself to… Tsubasa himself by showing off an injury on the networks.

A track record far from today’s stars’

However, he has none of Messi’s track record. It is even if he displays a very thin trophy cabinet despite his longevity (we are talking about more than 40 years of career) that we can more easily compare to the Japanese stars who inspired him, namely Musashi Mizushima and Kazuyoshi Miura: both saw their families move to Shizuoka before leaving very early (we’re talking before high school) for Brazil. The two do not have a track record that stands out from the rest. It must be emphasized, however, that Kazuyoshi Miura is one of the rare footballers to have played on four different continents and played across five decades. He even holds the record for the oldest professional footballer (still running!) as well as the oldest professional goalscorer.

A longevity shared by Tsubasa Ohzora even if his career is much more similar to that of Musashi Mizushima in view of his career: he shares the same first club and seems to attract injuries. In terms of results, Tsubasa does not display any senior trophies: it remains to be seen whether he and Japan will triumph at the Madrid Olympic Games.

• Champion of the national tournament with Nankatsu in the last year of elementary school (Manga Captain Tsubasapublished between 1981 and 1988).
• Triple Champion of the national tournament with Nankatsu over the three years of middle school but tied with Toho the last year (Manga Captain Tsubasapublished between 1981 and 1988).
• Champion of the Paris tournament for under-16s (U16) with Japan (Manga Captain Tsubasapublished between 1981 and 1988)
• Champion of the Asian Cup under 19 (U19) with Japan (Manga World Youthpublished between 1994 and 1997)
• Champion of the Under-20 World Cup (U20) with Japan (Manga World Youthpublished between 1994 and 1997)
• Liga champion with FC Barcelona (Manga In La Ligapublished between 2010 and 2012)
• Gold or silver medal: Madrid Olympic Games (Manga Rising Sun + Rising Sun: The Finalspublished between 2013 and 2024)

In the end, Olivier Atton alias Tsubasa Ohzora has a fairly light track record for his 40 years of existence, particularly within FC Barcelona. Something that is easily explained with several reasons: it is very difficult, if not impossible, to draw with the required regularity all the matches of a football championship (we are talking here about 38 matches) from one year to the next. ‘other. Even if we admit that the absence of a Champions League trophy is sorely lacking for a player who will have made people dream as much as Tsubasa: we are talking about 90 million copies distributed around the world and an animated series adapted in the whole world.

A global rather than international focus

So, some reassure themselves as best they can. Yoichi Takahashi said he continues to bring the characters in his work to life. Captain Tsubasa will just no longer be serialized through a magazine. He explains that this allows him not to have a deadline to respect (and probably to be freer in his drawings.

Message from Yoichi Takahashi on the sequel to “Captain Tsubasa”.
The series will continue in the form of a “draft series” on the new Captain Tsubasa WORLD site which will open on April 4, 2024.

If we do not yet know what the future of the work will hold, we know the author is now at peace with his new format. Enough, perhaps, to compensate for the holes in Tsubasa Ohzora’s record… but especially the holes concerning the careers of all the other players who shone. Because Captain Tsubasait is not that Captain Tsubasa : these are the careers of many footballers that we have learned to know, then to love, through their style of play. We also come to understand the vision that Japan has regarding football: it is above all a sport collective which serves to make the country shine on a global scale. It is therefore more important to put in place a set of players rather than a personality: reputation takes precedence above all. This is also why national competitions are highlighted more than leagues linked to the club. An observation that we notice again with the best-selling manga on the archipelago in 2023: Blue Lock is a manga around football which depicts the progress of a selection exam for young footballers to find the ultimate attacker. All this to make the country shine after the disappointment experienced during the round of 16 against Belgium in 2018.

It is therefore difficult to compare Tsubasa to a particular player. And after all, why do it? If Yoichi Takahashi’s manga has been so popular over the years, it is probably also for the variety of its characters. They, each in turn, made the manga and its animated adaptation more attractive. A great way to show that football is a sport where everyone has a role to play.