In junior high and high school, I was never a particularly good player.

Honestly, my ability with the ball at my feet was worse than the others'.

I wasn't in the first team.

In fact, I spent much longer stuck in the B team.

And yet now, I'm out on the pitch with strong players from all over Japan on my university's football team.

I'm competing alongside national training center selections, J.League youth academy graduates, and players who made their mark in the national high school championship.

Why?

Because instead of being an average player, I had something that stood out.

To put it in terms of school grades, a player with straight 3s out of 5 feels reliable, but honestly, you can find one anywhere.

But someone with a 5 in math, a 2 in English, and a 2 in Japanese has something powerful, even if their abilities are uneven.

That 5 becomes their weapon.

Football is the same. Sometimes, more than being average at everything,

a player is valued for having one thing they won't lose to anyone at.

For me, it's my height of 192 cm and the physical strength I refuse to be beaten on.

Even if I'm poor with the ball at my feet,

that weapon lets me compete in university football.

There are countless things that could become your 5.

The ability to beat anyone one-on-one out wide

Accurate long passing

Explosive speed over 50 meters

The height to win aerial battles at set pieces

Strong one-on-one defending

The ability to be the loudest voice and lift the whole team

You don't have to be perfect.

If you can find just one thing you refuse to be beaten at, it will become a weapon.

Of course, working to overcome your weaknesses matters too.

But ultimately, whether you shine in a match comes down to whether you can use your own weapon.

Coaches, too, want to select a player with something distinctive over an average one.

The reason someone as unskilled as I was can compete at university

is that I believed in standing out instead of being average, and kept honing that strength.

If there's a junior high or high school student thinking, “I'm not good enough, so it's impossible,” I want to say this.

What matters isn't making everything perfect.

It's developing a weapon you can say nobody will beat you at.

That weapon will put you on the pitch.

And it will change your life in football.