Kazu Miura and the never-ending soccer career

'Kazu gives a good example, pushing people, motivating the players'

A typhoon approached. Rain arrived by kickoff. Everyone in the sparse crowd seemed to be wearing a poncho or holding an umbrella.

There was little reason to attend a middling second-division match here on the last day of September, but Junichi Onishi, 61, had an assignment. He has covered soccer for three decades for Sports Nippon, Japan’s oldest sports newspaper. And he was on watch.

“In case Kazu plays,” Onishi said.

He was referring to Kazuyoshi Miura, the pioneering and flamboyant Japanese forward who is still going at age 51. Last year, Miura became what was believed to be the oldest professional player