Why English teams are raiding Japan for talent: Inside the 'Project DNA' revolution, the bargains available and the role that West Ham played in a Far East takeover

There is more to Kota Takai’s move to Tottenham than meets the eye. Not only is £5million the biggest fee ever paid for a player out of Japan’s top flight, but part of a fast-developing trend that is no accident.

Wataru Endo is a Premier League champion with Liverpool, Daichi Kamada an FA Cup winner with Crystal Palace and Kaoru Mitoma continues to mesmerise at Brighton, where he scored one of the best goals of last season.

Ao Tanaka won the Championship title with Leeds and Tomoki Iwata won League One with Birmingham, while others sparkling in the EFL included Tatsuhiro Sakamoto of Coventry City and Yuki Ohashi of Blackburn Rovers.

This is not the first wave of footballing talent to hit these shores from Japan but represents a notable surge and there is more on the way, with roots set a decade ago when the Japanese FA and the J-League hatched a scheme to reboot football in their country, having detected that the positive ripples of the World Cup in 2002 were fading.

It was entitled Project DNA, launched in 2016 with echoes of an English FA initiative already up and running, and they sent a delegation to western Europe to study some of the most prolific talent factories, including those at West Ham and Southampton.

In 2019, the J-League went back to the Hammers to recruit academy manager Terry Westley and head of academy operations Adam Raimes to drive the programme forward.

Japan’s Project DNA, in contrast to the English version, would stand for ‘developing natural ability’ and involved a concerted effort to open pathways for young players, despite Japan’s cultural respect for seniority.

Westley and Raimes started with an audit of the 60 clubs in the top three tiers of Japanese football. They found Kawasaki Frontale to be among the best with a strong academy, which produced Mitoma and Iwata, and a technical board in place adept at identifying talent and maximising it.

In Takai, they realised they had an exceptional young central defender. He was tall, mobile, quick on recovery and comfortable on the ball. He was already earmarked as a prized asset who may one day command a seven-figure transfer fee.

'They highlighted Takai as one with big potential,' Westley tells Mail Sport. 'He was an early talent. The first time I saw him he was playing in the youth team for his club and stood out from most Japanese players because of his size.

'He was 6ft 4in and still gangly, he reminded me of a young Matthew Upson at the time I took him into Luton Town, because he hadn’t fully grown into his body but his potential was clear and the club recognised his talent.'

Westley and Raimes recommended J-League clubs should have individual development plans for their young players aged 16-20, as they had done at West Ham during the time when Declan Rice emerged.

It was completely at odds with Japan’s team-first ethos and a nation’s view that if a nail is standing tall, it should be knocked back down.

Six years on, however, the evidence is clear. Japanese football is producing brilliant individual footballers without losing any traditional qualities, such as work ethic and commitment to the team cause.

It has made it an attractive market for British clubs, who have seen Celtic capitalise on signings from Japan after Ange Postecoglou arrived from Yokohama F Marinos (part of the City Football Group) of the J-League in 2021 and brought in a cluster of Japanese players, led by the success of Daizen Maeda, Reo Hatate and Kyogo Furuhashi, who has recently joined Birmingham from Rennes.

Postecoglou has moved on to Spurs and beyond, but Celtic remain loyal to Japanese bargains. This summer, the Scottish champions have snapped up 23-year-old central defender Hayato Inamura from Albirex Nigata and are reported to be close to signing Shin Yamada, a 25-year-old forward who has also come through at Kawasaki Frontale.

Across Europe, others have fixed eyes on the east in search of rising talent, particularly recruiters from clubs in leagues such as Austria and Belgium, pitching themselves as good places for young players to adapt, develop and move on to the elite leagues.

Anderlecht signed Keisuke Goto from Jubilo Iwata last year at the age of 18. Goto, now 20, was assigned to the second team, but forced his way into the first team and appeared in the Europa League last season.

Red Bull Salzburg have just signed exciting forward Sota Kitano, aged 20, from Cerezo Osaka, the same Osaka-to-Salzburg route taken by Takumi Minamino in 2015 before his transfer to Liverpool.

In January, Westerlo, a Belgian club with firm loan links to Spurs, signed 21-year-old centre forward Isa Sakamoto from Gamba Osaka, where he became the youngest player to score double figures in goals in the J-League.

Takai developed quickly once turning professional. He broke into Kawasaki Frontale’s first team and made his senior international debut in September, securing a place in Japan’s back three as they completed a commanding qualification campaign by becoming the first non-hosts to book a place at next year’s World Cup finals.

Japan have lost just three matches in the last two years and stunned the world in 2022 when they beat both Germany and Spain in their group in Qatar to reach the last 16. Defeat came on penalties to eventual third-place finishers Croatia. They followed that up with a 4-1 thumping of the Germans in a friendly in Wolfsburg in 2023, their heaviest home defeat since Michael Owen's hat-trick in Munich in 2001.

Takai's international reputation spread this year on the back of his strong performances in Asia’s Champions League, in particular nullifying the threat of Cristiano Ronaldo, Sadio Mane and Jhon Duran as Kawasaki beat star-studded Al Nassr of Saudi Arabia in a semi-final in April, before losing the final against Al Ahli.

Tottenham’s technical director Johan Lange was already in pursuit. Lange, like most in his field in the modern age, is routinely alerted to any teenager making a debut in any decent league in the world.

'Takai is athletic,' says Westley. 'He is aggressive, quick and very technical, and did well in the Champions League. Tottenham have done well to get him out of there at that price. It is ridiculously cheap if you think they could easily get it back in loan fees alone. The Japanese clubs are selling too cheap.'

That value for money might be about to change if this generation of players can fulfil their potential in European football.