is a Japanese manager and former footballer. He played for the Japan national team. He is the first Japanese player to score in the J1 League. His two sons Koki Kazama and Koya Kazama are also footballers.

Club career

Kazama was born in

Shizuoka Shizuoka can refer to: * Shizuoka Prefecture, a Japanese prefecture * Shizuoka (city), the capital city of Shizuoka Prefecture * Shizuoka Airport * Shizuoka Domain, the name from 1868 to 1871 for Sunpu Domain, a predecessor of Shizuoka Prefecture ...

on October 16, 1961. After graduating from

University of Tsukuba is a public research university located in Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan. It is a top 10 Designated National University, and was ranked Type A by the Japanese government as part of the Top Global University Project. The university has 28 colle ...

, he moved to Germany in 1984. He played for several clubs, including

Remscheid Remscheid () is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is, after Wuppertal and Solingen, the third-largest municipality in Bergisches Land, being located on the northern edge of the region, on the south side of the Ruhr area. Remscheid h ...

and Eintracht Braunschweig. In 1989, he returned to Japan and joined

Japan Soccer League , or JSL, was the top flight association football league in Japan between 1965 and 1992, and was the precursor to the current professional league, the J.League. JSL was the second national league of a team sport in Japan after the professional ...

Division 2 club

Mazda , commonly referred to as simply Mazda, is a Japanese multinational automotive manufacturer headquartered in Fuchū, Hiroshima, Japan. In 2015, Mazda produced 1.5 million vehicles for global sales, the majority of which (nearly one m ...

(later ''Sanfrecce Hiroshima''). The club was promoted to Division 1 in 1991. In 1992, the Japan Soccer League was folded and founded a new league, the J1 League. In the league's first season, he played in the opening match and scored a goal, which is the first goal by a Japanese player in the J1 League. He left Sanfrecce Hiroshima at the end of the 1995 season and returned to Remscheid again. He retired in 1998.

National team career

In August 1979, when Kazama was a

Shimizu Commercial High School was a co-educational commercial high school located in Shimizu-ku, Shizuoka, Japan. The school was founded in 1921 and was permanently closed on March 31st, 2013. It had a strong soccer program and won the All Japan High School Soccer Tournamen ...

student, he was selected by the Japan U-20 national team for 1979 World Youth Championship and he played 3 games. In December 1980, when he was a

student, he was selected by the Japan national team for

1982 World Cup qualification __NOTOC__ Year 198 (CXCVIII) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Sergius and Gallus (or, less frequently, year 951 '' Ab ...

. At this qualification, on December 22, he debuted against

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bor ...

. He also played at

1982 Asian Games The 9th Asian Games ( hi, 1982 एशियाई खेल) were held from 19 November to 4 December 1982, in Delhi, India. 74 Asian and Asian Games records were broken at the event. This was also the first Asiad to be held under the aegis of t ...

and 1984 Summer Olympics qualification. He played 19 games for Japan until 1983.Japan National Football Team Database
/ref> After he moved to Germany in 1984, he was not selected to play for Japan.

Coaching career

After retirement, Kazama became a manager for the Toin University of Yokohama in 1998. He resigned in 2003. In 2008, he became a manager for his alma mater

and managed until April 2012. On April 23, 2012,

Kawasaki Frontale is a Japanese professional football club based in Kawasaki, Kanagawa Prefecture, south of Tokyo. The club plays in the J1 League, which is the top tier of football in the country. Their home stadium is Kawasaki Todoroki Stadium, in Nakahara ...

announced Kazama as their new manager. He succeeded

Naoki Soma is a Japanese football manager and former player. He played for the Japan national team He is the current manager of Omiya Ardija. Club career Soma was born in Shizuoka on July 19, 1971. After graduating from Waseda University , mottoen ...

who was fired for poor results. Kazama led the club to 3rd place twice (

2013 File:2013 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: Edward Snowden becomes internationally famous for leaking classified NSA wiretapping information; Typhoon Haiyan kills over 6,000 in the Philippines and Southeast Asia; The Dhaka garment fa ...

and

2016 File:2016 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Bombed-out buildings in Ankara following the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt; the Impeachment of Dilma Rousseff, impeachment trial of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff; Damaged houses duri ...

) and were runners-up of the

2016 Emperor's Cup The was the 2016 edition of the annual Japanese national cup tournament, which was held from 27 August 2016 to its final on 1 January 2017. Kashima Antlers won their fifth title after a 2–1 defeat of Kawasaki Frontale in the final after extra ...

. He resigned at the end of the 2016 season. In 2017, Kazama moved to J2 League club

Nagoya Grampus (formerly known as ) is a Japanese association football club that plays in the J1 League, following promotion from the J2 League in 2017. Based in Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture and founded as the company team of the Toyota, Toyota Motor Corp. in 1939 ...

. He led the club to a 3rd place finish at the end of the

season A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperate and ...

and hence gained promotion to

2018 J1 League The 2018 J1 League, also known as the for sponsorship reasons, was the 26th season of J1 League, the top Japanese professional league for association football clubs, since its establishment in 1993. Kawasaki Frontale were the defending champi ...

. In 2018 season, although Grampus results were bad, Grampus finished at the 15th place and remained in J1. On 23 September 2019, it was announced Kazama would be leaving Grampus after an underwhelming season.

Club statistics

National team statistics

Managerial statistics

J.League Data Site
/ref>

References

External links

* *

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Kazama, Yahiro 1961 births Living people University of Tsukuba alumni Japanese men's footballers Japan men's youth international footballers Japan men's international footballers Japanese expatriate men's footballers Japanese expatriate sportspeople in Germany Expatriate men's footballers in Germany 2. Bundesliga players Japan Soccer League players J1 League players Bayer 04 Leverkusen II players FC Remscheid players Eintracht Braunschweig players Sanfrecce Hiroshima players Japanese football managers J1 League managers J2 League managers Kawasaki Frontale managers Nagoya Grampus managers Footballers at the 1982 Asian Games Men's association football midfielders Asian Games competitors for Japan Association football people from Shizuoka (city)