The Most Famous

SOCCER PLAYERS from Japan

This page contains a list of the greatest Japanese Soccer Players. The pantheon dataset contains 16,923 Soccer Players, 4,052 of which were born in Japan. This makes Japan the birth place of the most number of Soccer Players.

Top 10

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the top 10 most legendary Japanese Soccer Players of all time. This list of famous Japanese Soccer Players is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity. Visit the rankings page to view the entire list of Japanese Soccer Players.

1. Hisataka Okamoto (1933 - )

With an HPI of 70.66, Hisataka Okamoto is the most famous Japanese Soccer Player. His biography has been translated into 51 different languages on wikipedia.

Hisataka Okamoto (岡本久敬, Okamoto Hisataka, born December 14, 1933) is a former Japanese football player. He played for Japan national team.

2. Kunishige Kamamoto (1944 - )

With an HPI of 70.61, Kunishige Kamamoto is the 2nd most famous Japanese Soccer Player. His biography has been translated into 60 different languages.

Kunishige Kamamoto (釜本邦茂, Kamamoto Kunishige, born April 15, 1944) is a former Japanese football player, manager and politician. He won the bronze medal with the Japan national team at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, finishing as the tournament's top scorer with seven goals, and is the all-time leading goalscorer for Japan. He served as a member of the House of Councillors between 1995 and 2001.

Pantheon has 4,052 people classified as soccer players born between 1891 and 2002. Of these 4,052, 3,946 (97.38%) of them are still alive today. The most famous living soccer players include Hisataka Okamoto, Kunishige Kamamoto, and Akira Kitaguchi. The most famous deceased soccer players include Tsukasa Hosaka, Yasuo Takamori, and Yozo Aoki. As of October 2020, 1167 new soccer players have been added to Pantheon including Keiichiro Nuno, Kim Jong-song, and Tsuyoshi Otsuki.