Even among all the elite athletes at Vissel Kobe, Gotoku Sakai stands out for his strong professional ethos and for constantly pushing himself harder. How is he able to keep chasing excellence so relentlessly? The answer lies not only in his fierce will to lead the team to a championship, but in a deep passion for Japanese soccer as a whole ― shaped by his years in Germany.

Sakai represented Japan at the 2014 and 2018 World Cups and captained the German powerhouse Hamburger SV. He joined Vissel Kobe in 2019 and has since been the structural backbone of the team, delivering with both technique and toughness.

After playing in every game in 2021 and 2022, he still refuses to slow down. There’s a distinct consciousness behind that drive that he values as a professional.

“Being a professional, to me, means always being ready. Being able to consistently deliver 100% performance no matter what the situation or timing. The ability to commit yourself all the time. It’s easy to do what you have to do when things are going well, or things are going bad. But when things are neither good nor bad, people tend to choose the easier path. But that’s actually when you need to be putting in the most effort. I make a point of not letting my guard down when things look stable.”

The ability to keep aiming higher without settling for where you are comes from always setting your sights on a player who has something you don’t. Feeling from an early age that he was ‘not as good as the others,’ he never stopped observing and practicing.

“From the time I started playing soccer, I had a strong desire to improve and expand my options, so I observed a lot of good players and was constantly impressed. ‘This person is so good. That move he does is incredible.’ That mindset hasn’t changed today. And I don’t think it’s specific to soccer. I’d love for fans to try it too ― if you ever feel like you’ve lost your sense of direction in your own career, look around. There will always be someone in your field who’s better than you in some way. Use those people as your motivation to maintain high standards. Have confidence in your strengths, but be honest about your weaknesses and what you can’t do ― study if you need more knowledge, practice if you need more technique. Doing that over and over again is what leads to growth.”

An ambition that never wanes no matter how old he gets or how many achievements pile up. That’s precisely why, at the end of the 2022 season, the feeling surged: he couldn’t be satisfied with where he was.

“I felt I’d grown too comfortable with the Japanese environment, and I needed to push myself again. It’s not that the level of Japanese soccer is low ― it’s more that when you prioritize playing pretty, you slip into a slow-tempo game. That’s the difference with Germany. Because I knew what it was like to play in those fast-pitch games, I felt like I didn’t quite measure up to who I was back then.”

The power and speed of players overseas, a hunger to score goals, and a relentless drive to win, is something he believes Japanese soccer needs to grow.

“Compared to the world, I feel that we still need to fine tune the very essence of what soccer is. The most fundamental thing in soccer is scoring goals. Overseas players pursue that without holding back, and that intensity is what I believe is lacking in Japanese soccer. I want to be in charge of the evolution of the J.League and Japanese soccer as a whole. I want to share everything I learned in Germany and everything I have. I want to show everyone what you can do when you’ve played in Germany ― the team, and to players across the J.League.”

The professionalism that Sakai shows,his technique and sheer presence he’s built through his years on the world stage ― every time he brings them out on the pitch, it lifts Vissel Kobe and Japanese soccer to a higher level.
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Text: Chiharu Abe