Meet the world’s oldest pro footballer – Still playing at 58!
Meet the world’s oldest pro footballer – Still playing at 58!
Japanese forward Kazuyoshi Miura turned 58 on Wednesday.
Happy Birthday to the player known as “King Kazu.”
But there’s more to celebrate.
He is also set to start his 40th season in professional football, making him the oldest player in the Japanese Football League.
Miura plays for the Japanese fourth-division team Suzuka, on loan from the second-division club Yokohama.
Suzuka was set to begin training this week, with the season opening next month.
“Retiring isn’t an option. I want to play as many minutes as I can in games,” Miura said late last year at a news conference, as quoted by the Japanese news agency Kyodo.
Miura has played professionally in Brazil, Italy, Croatia, Australia, and Portugal. He made his debut in 1986 with Santos in Brazil, a club made famous by Brazilian star Pelé.
In 2017, at the age of 50, he became the oldest player to score in a professional match, surpassing the record held by the highly decorated England international Stanley Matthews.
Miura was one of the first big names in Japanese football. He scored 55 goals in 89 appearances and was a star for Japan’s national team in the 1990s.
