In Barcelona, where Lamine Yamal’s rise has already crossed far beyond the touchline, the club has shared a tribute from one of Japan’s most recognisable football storytellers. Yoichi Takahashi, creator of the manga and anime phenomenon Captain Tsubasa, has drawn the Spanish forward in his distinctive manga style.
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Barcelona published a video showing Takahashi producing the illustration by hand, working from a reference photograph of Yamal. The drawing places the young Barça player in the bold, expressive visual world associated with Takahashi’s long-running football creation.
The artist’s best-known work followed Tsubasa Ozora, known in several countries as Oliver Tsubasa, a young player pursuing the ambition of becoming a world champion with Japan. Captain Tsubasa became particularly popular through its animated television series and films, including in Brazil during the 1990s.
Football has long been at the centre of Takahashi’s work, and the character at the heart of Captain Tsubasa was itself shaped by a real-life Japanese player: Musashi Mizushima.
A link from Japan to São Paulo
Mizushima, a midfielder, travelled to Brazil in 1975 to train with São Paulo after Pelé recommended him to the club. Pelé had encountered the Japanese player during a visit to Japan.
His senior career with São Paulo amounted to one match, played in 1985. The side lost 4-3 to Bragantino at the old Estádio Marcelo Stéfani, the ground now known as Arena Red Bull.
That chain of football connections — from a Japanese player in São Paulo, to a manga hero dreaming of international glory, and now to Yamal in Barcelona — has given the teenage winger a place in a cultural football story that reaches well beyond Catalonia.
