‘A SPECIAL player’ How thrilling was Kaoru Mitoma in Brighton’s win vs. Liverpool? | ESPN FC

I honestly thought Mitoma was about 21 but he'll be 26 in May 😮

If Mudryk is worth €100m Mitoma is €150m-200m 😁

Both Osimhen and Mitoma yesterday decided to woke up and scored spectacular goals

Brighton best be careful cos they have the best upcoming manager in europe? He cud replace klopp or postman potter at chelsea? Stop selling his best players else will be poached this summer?

Klopp looks like a manager devoid of answers😮😮😮

If klopp was brightons manager seeing his players getting tackled like that, we would not have heard the end of it

The Mitoma v Gomez memes are real 😅 the Ice Spice meme is the best so far 🤣🤣🤣

Fact Lewis dunk scores let’s you know what kind of game Brighton had

So do you think the biggest story for this year in Premier League is Liverpool falls from grace or Arsenal sitting at the top of the table?

Espn fc or euro bias football has never seen japan in the world cup. Or Korea. Or African talent. The money they make is like giving Ronaldo 300 million contract to play in a Saudi league. Which is insane money for his age and character. The media continues to show epl teams like loserpool and over rated psg when you can tell that most winnings come down to mainly defense.

Said it when Brighton first signed him (ie even before he went to Belgium) and Ill repeat it here

Kaoru Mitoma is the most uniquely dangerous player that Asia has ever produced, because he has a quality that Ive only seen in a handful of players in my life (and I was a Liverpool fan back when King Kenny was just a curlyhaired kid from Scotland).

With all due respect to Son H-M (who still qualifies as "the best" Asian player … for the time being) Mitoma has something truly unique. His ability to run past people on the wing is something that you see only on rare occasions. Most people see it for the first few times and think: "Boy is he fast". But if you watch him run wind sprints with teammates you realise that it isnt SPEED, really. Lots of other players can beat him in the 50-yard sprints, so it isnt as if he has "blazing speed". What he DOES have is something that I have named "continuously variable transmission", because that is exactly what it looks like.

If you watch any average player "go through the gears" with the ball at their feet, they will typically display three different "poses" as they speed up. In order to accelerate, they have to alter the "shape" of their stride, and particularly if you are watching for that burst of speed you can instantly tell that they are going to accelerate. Mitoma, however, has a very deceptive stride when he accelerates. Somehow he goes from a slow walk to full sprint without ever changing the "shape" of his stride.

As the above paragraph indicates, it is hard to desrcibe in words. But anyone who watches his highlight reels has seen it. One minute he and a defender are going along shoulder-to-shoulder, and then suddenly with no apparent effort, Mitoma starts to pull away. Nine times out of ten the defender freaks out, changes his "gear" and starts sprinting to catch up, only for Mitoma to swerve, decelerate and cut inside, or alternatively, turn the speed on faster, round the corner and cut the ball back. Defenders simply have no clue to figure out when he is going to change speeds, because his stride never changes.

This is something that is extremely rare, and very hard to defend. Leo Messi has something similar in the way his stride never changes, but Messi isnt very speedy to begin with so it is hard to compare. I can recall that Eder Alexio (google the name if you dont know it. He was a Legend) used to have this quality, that people referred to as "magic acceleration". The key detail is that since Mitoma's stride never "changes shape", he can always keep the ball close to his feet. Most players, as they shift up a gear, tend to take a bigger touch than usual. Even if they beat their man it often gives the defender in the second line a chance to reach the ball first. Mitoma doesnt need to take a big touch becouse it is all one smooth acceleration. As a result he is constantly arriving at the ball a step BEFORE the defender, and can control possession before they can intervene.

Of course, Im sure you also have heard the story about him and the go-pro. Mitoma is a very intelligent player who is valuable for his understanding of the game as much as he is for his physical skills. He spent a good two or three years actually analysing his own dribbling technique, and which moves were hardest for the opponent to "read". In particular, he spent a lot of time practicing passes with the outside of each foot. This is because (paraphrasing Mitoma's thesis) outside kicks are the mirror image of normal ones, so even if you only use the outside of the foot 1 time in 5 or 1 time in 10, it messes with the defender's ability to anticipate your next move. His "read" of your next move gets scrambled, and that makes it easier to get him to bite on your "fake".

Incidentaly, this career path isnt particularly rare. Daizen Maeda, Reo Hatate, Yuki Kobayashi, Yuto Nagatomo, Yoshinori Muto … all went to university before turning pro. In Japan this is relatively common, not only because university education is highly valued, but also because in Japan, university level football is very competitive (several university teams are in the fourth or fifth tiers of the pyramid). In my experience, players who dont start "getting stuck in" until age 21 seem to be more resilient and typically do not peak until their mid to late twenties — look at Nagatomo, who is still a J1 star at age 36.

Despite being 25, Mitoma's relative lack of professional playing experience means that he is still just coming into his prime. It is scary to think about, but he is only going to get better.

Where is the thumbnail image?
Blocked YouTuber.