Yoji Mizuguchi is a former Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese football player and manager. He has played for Yanmar Diesel

Cerezo Osaka

is a J. League Division 1 association football team. The team name Cerezo means cherry tree in Spanish, which is also the flower of Ōsaka city....

.

History

Mizuguchi played for Yanmar Diesel from 1967 to 1971 and remained with the club, managing the reserve squad

Reserve team

Large professional sports clubs often have far more players under contract than could possibly play in a match. As a result, many of these clubs create second teams composed of players who need playing time, but have little hope of playing on the first team. The players on this second team are...

, Yanmar Club. When Yanmar decided to dissolve the reserve squad, he led some players into a new team under the auspices of Matsushita which would be the roots for the team that would become Matsushita Soccer Club/Gamba Osaka

Gamba Osaka

is a Japanese professional association football club, currently playing in the J. League Division 1. The team's name comes from the Italian word "gamba" meaning "leg" and the Japanese , meaning "to do your best" or "to stand firm". Located in Suita, Osaka, the team's home stadium is Osaka Expo '70...

. Mizuguchi managed Matsushita for most of the 1980s and engineered their rise through the divisions, winning the Emperor's Cup

Emperor's Cup

, commonly known as or , is a Japanese association football competition. It has the longest tradition of any football tournament in Japan, dating back to 1921, before the formation of the J. League, Japan Football League and their predecessor, Japan Soccer League...

 in 1990. In 1991 he turned over the reins to Kunishige Kamamoto

Kunishige Kamamoto

Kunishige Kamamoto is a former association football player from Japan, who won the bronze medal with the Japan national team at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, Mexico, finishing as the tournament's top scorer with seven goals...

, another Yanmar/Cerezo legend who now wanted to help the new Osaka power.