Faint light shines through from soccer

The J.League title race has become increasingly intense. Although I am just watching from the outside, it has become completely impossible to predict which team will win. It feels like more than just the J.League-related articles hyping it up; this really seems like a rare league where the standings change with every single match.
I was also surprised by the weekday attendance numbers. August 20th was a Wednesday, yet 24,000 people gathered in Hiroshima. I think there are various factors involved, but perhaps the way they recruited players stirred the hearts of the fans. They aggressively reinforced the team with players who possess both skill and popularity, such as Naoto Arai from Albirex Niigata and Ryo Germain from Jubilo Iwata.
The location being right in front of the station also seems to have been a success. It has become easy for salarymen and students to come and watch on their way home from work. Since it is a soccer-specific stadium, I imagine one can enjoy the match from any seat.
The fact that the manager comes from a high school background also makes me feel that a wonderful future awaits. Aomori Yamada High School is famous nationwide for soccer these days, but the fact that its former manager is now managing Zelvia Machida in Japan's top league and is currently number one in J1 is something that would have been unthinkable in the past. The majority opinion was that he was just a high school coach and likely an amateur.
Of course, in other sports, no matter how excellent a high school may be at that sport, they do not become professional sports managers, nor can they. The level between high school and professional is indeed different, so the previous opinions were not necessarily wrong. However, the fact that a manager from a famous high school that has almost become professional has demonstrated such ability in an actual professional league is, I believe, a first step not just for Manager Kuroda, but for Japanese history.
It seems that starting next year, the Club World Cup will begin to be held every other year in soccer. As a Japanese person, I would have liked it to continue as the Toyota Cup, but as a soccer fan, I want to welcome an era where soccer from all over the world can always be watched at any time.
The system where contract money for players raised in junior youth and youth teams is returned to those clubs—a system where not only rich clubs survive, but teams that carefully discover and develop talent can also continue to exist—feels like it is brightly illuminating the future of soccer.