30 years of coaching, 4 J1 promotions. Why is the talk of master manager Shinji Kobayashi so long?

Manager Shinji Kobayashi has been leading Giravanz Kitakyushu since this season. He boasts a track record of being called a "promotion contractor," having led Oita Trinita, Montedio Yamagata, Tokushima Vortis, and Shimizu S-Pulse to J1 promotion shortly after taking office. He is from Kunimi, Unzen City, Nagasaki Prefecture, and is an alumnus of Shimabara Commercial High School. He was a member of the team that achieved the first Inter-High School Championship victory for a Nagasaki prefecture team in 1977 under the guidance of the late Takatoshi Komine, who later turned the Kunimi High School soccer club into a powerhouse, making him a genuine original "Komine Child." His older brother is a pastry chef at a confectionery store near Kunimi High School.

After graduating from Osaka University of Commerce, he played for Mazda SC, led by manager Hans Ooft. He retired from his playing career and began his path as a coach in 1990.

An incident where the interpreter's voice went hoarse during a meeting when he was the manager of Tokushima

Manager Kobayashi is also famous for his long meetings. In his first year as manager of Tokushima, there was a rare incident where the voice of his Portuguese interpreter, Luis, went hoarse. Bathroom breaks are "a normal occurrence" (testimony from a certain player).

When he was the manager of Yamagata, the length of his post-match comments published on J's GOAL became a hot topic. Standard manager comments are usually a few hundred characters, or at most around 1,500 characters, but for Manager Kobayashi, over 3,000 characters was normal, and 4,000-character classes were common. When it exceeded 5,000 characters, I felt moved in a way. The work of the reporter who meticulously transcribes this as a breaking news story after the matchMadoka Sato is also wonderful. By the way, Madoka-san was once called one of the "El Golazo Three Beauties" among fellow El Golazo reporters, along with reporterYuki Nishikawa and reporterReona Takenaka, but all three are fine men. In fact, Madoka-san is the most masculine, or rather, a nice middle-aged man who falls into the category of an older gentleman.

I myself had the experience of being impressed by his meticulous and kind guidance when I saw Manager Kobayashi teaching defense to Kim Kun-hee during the Yamagata Unzen camp in 2010. Also, last season, when he was a free agent after resigning as Shimizu manager at the end of 2017, he taught me various things during a broadcast meeting when I was in charge of the Oita match for DAZN commentary, and that was also truly a masterpiece of detail. Of course, the meeting dragged on (laughs).

However, how can he be so meticulous and detailed? What is the secret to conveying everything down to the details without boring the listener even if the talk is long, and leading the players to growth and achieving results in terms of match records?

Wanting to know that mechanism, I had been secretly looking for a chance to conduct a long, thorough interview for a long time. And now, that chance has finally arrived...!

The character count is 1.5 times that of other managers when converted to time

The opportunity was given to me by Tagma!'s "J-Ron Premium". Previously, they also published an interview with current FC Gifu manager Makoto Kitano in two parts, first and second.

On July 12, I visited Manager Kobayashi at the Shin-Monji clubhouse. My own craftiness in asking the editor-in-chief in advance, "It will surely be voluminous, so please divide it into first and second parts like you did for Kitano-san."

However, the master manager with a 30-year career completely outdid me. Normally, my standard interview character count is about 8,000 to 9,000 characters for one hour, but in the case of Manager Kobayashi, when I transcribed a one-hour interview, it was a whopping 15,000 characters! About 1.5 times the usual!! Truly impressive!!!

If I publish 15,000 characters divided into three parts, will people read it?

...There was that concern, but in an interview, not only the content but also conveying the speaker's breathing is very important. Especially since many readers of "J-Ron Premium" watch manager interviews on DAZN on a daily basis, if I write in a somewhat colloquial style, it should be reproduced in their brains in the manager's tone of voice. If so, I should transcribe it as faithfully to the audio as possible to the limit where it doesn't become difficult to read.

Thus, the struggle with the interview audio began. It is a re-experience of a valuable interview, with goosebump-inducing words scattered throughout.

Sometimes like waves crashing in, and sometimes like painting with a brush

Through the transcription work, when I unraveled the mechanism of Manager Kobayashi's talk again, several characteristics emerged.

First, the answer to one question is long. Where others would end in two or three sentences, he supplements one after another as if to follow up on the first answer. It is non-stop, like waves crashing on the beach, folding over one after another without end.

In addition to that "supplement from behind" pattern, there is also a "supplement from the opposite" pattern. It's like the image of moving a brush from left to right when painting, and then applying a second coat from right to left. This is truly soccer-like, and it feels like it is being depicted multi-dimensionally and stereoscopically from the perspectives of both the attacking and defending sides.

Everything is spun with great care and precision, with passion. In that process, negative words are never used. It's not just on the surface, but I think he has probably made it a habit to be conscious of that in his daily life. The heat generated when switching from minus to plus is truly high-calorie.

Original world interpretation through deconstruction and reconstruction

Another thing I wanted to depict through this interview was the source of the highly original expressions that Manager Kobayashi has shown in DAZN commentary and other places. Being able to express things uniquely means that there is a unique interpretation at the root of it.

Were these cultivated in the days of repeating guidance to the players? Understanding is the work of thoroughly deconstructing principles and reconstructing them in one's own way. What is reconstructed in one's own way should be quite simple if you get to the bottom of it. In the process of conveying that as carefully as waves and brushes, he overlays complexity little by little again. The manager's daily life is a repetition of that. He must have felt the difficulty of conveying things more acutely than we have.

For example, in this interview, especially in the part where he talked about defense, I think you can read the process of deconstruction, reconstruction, and conveying it in an experiential way.

Killer sentences inserted from time to time

I think Manager Kobayashi himself speaks without being that conscious of it, but from time to time, incredibly punchy sentences are inserted into the talk that comes rushing in endlessly. This stabs at the heart.

I will extract a few from the interview published in three parts. First, the first part, the part where he talked about the reason for becoming the manager and sports director of Kitakyushu and his determination.

"Because in the end, humans come to a point where they either protect themselves or do something for this person. At the edge, absolutely."

"After saying something clearly like walking the talk, when I return to myself or a slightly weak self comes out, I also think, 'Did I say too much? Can I do this?' But I go in with a strong attitude."

"I think it's reckless. I thought that since I've been a manager for a long time, the time had come to challenge such things, and while doing it, I also feel that it is indeed reckless."

And here is from the second part, where he talked about the transition of his own soccer style.

"Now, I am aiming for soccer where we apply pressure from a high position, win the ball, and take the initiative ourselves. I'm very anxious, but I'm doing it."

"No, it's always special. I don't do the same thing to get promoted. Because the teams are different."

There is a mass that only arises in people who are committed with their bodies on the line. And after frankly putting into words the pressure and anxiety felt when putting one's body on the line, the determination to face it is full of spirit.

When I had him chew up the latest theory in the "Shinji Kobayashi style"

In the third part, I asked him about the principles of soccer based on his original world interpretation. It is an attempt to have Manager Kobayashi explain "positional play" and "periodization of soccer," which are catchy even among recent tactical terms, with his own interpretation. Many attractive sentences came out here too.

"The side that wins the ball overlaps with the opponent's shape in that position."

"Therefore, without a doubt, it's just the old 'spread out the attack and narrow the defense.' In words. And when you get better, if you can rotate even if there is a player who is a little spread out, you can use that. As for the defensive side, if a good team spreads out, you can't win the ball, right? So, you narrow down the spread opponent for defense. If you can win the ball there, you don't need to narrow it down, but you narrow it down to win the ball. The attacking side keeps it wide so as not to be taken. In that sense, wide soccer of possession."

"When it's 'It's coming to me!', the ball is in space."

After simplifying the game of soccer to the ultimate, he overlays his own color on it. It is exactly a follow-up to the words in the first part, 'If you simplify it little by little like that, it will take a certain shape, right?'

Where does the driving force of kindness come from?

Anyway, a dense one-hour interview. Manager Kobayashi, whom I met for the first time in a while, welcomed me with a big smile, and then the moment we entered the interview, he suddenly turned into a serious expression. That large gap in switching was also full of impact.

Just as he faced the interview in front of me with all his might, he surely demonstrates kindness to the coaches and players, the club executives, and the fans and supporters on a daily basis. Where on earth does that inexhaustible driving force come from?

Although there are differences in direction, intensity, and character, I think that is the case for every manager, but what I felt in Manager Kobayashi's interview felt somewhat similar to Manager Takuya Takagi, whom I wrote about in my book "The Abnormal Love of Managers." I don't know if it's what their hometown of Nagasaki brought to them, if it was born from the common denominator of being "Komine Children," or if it's just a coincidence, but the somewhat rustic frankness and the feeling of hitting it with all one's might, and yet the delicacy and precision, are still similar even when I look back on it now. Perhaps there is a hint there.

...And so, I have written various things while trying to get to the bottom of 'Why is the talk of master tactician Shinji Kobayashi so long?', but I realized that this note itself has exceeded 4,500 characters. Perhaps it means that in order to talk about someone's wholeheartedness, I must also be wholehearted myself.

It has become long, but I hope you will keep these things in the corner of your mind and take a look at the long interview with manager Shinji Kobayashi.