New national football coach Yoshida draws criticism for “horrific” coaching record

Speculation that the Football Association of Singapore (FAS) has selected Tatsuma Yoshida as its incoming national coach for the Lions has drawn criticism online by sports enthusiasts who have called Yoshida’s coaching record “horrific”.

Earlier this week, the national broadsheet reported that the FAS “will unveil Tatsuma Yoshida as the new national coach this week”. 

Yoshida was born in Chiba Prefecture in 1974 and became a regular football player in Japan during the 1990s. In 2002, he moved to Singapore and played for Jurong and retired at the end of the 2002 season.

The former football player joined the world of coaching after he succeeded Nelsinho Baptista to coach the Kashiwa Reysol football club for the 2015 season. After just one year, he was dismissed from the team. Yoshida was then signed as manager by the Albirex Niigata football club but he parted ways with the team before the end of the season.

For the 2017 season, he was appointed by the Ventforet Kofu football club, which finished in the 17th spot and was relegated to the J2 league. The club Yoshida managed for the 2018 season also performed poorly and placed 16 out of 22 clubs.

The ‘Singapore Football Review’ Facebook page has since criticised the FAS’ rumoured decision to sign Yoshida.

Calling Yoshida a “seemingly mediocre coach,” the page asserted that Yoshida’s coaching record is “rather horrific” and that he “never lasted more than one season with the same team in the Japanese top tier.” The page continued:

“In his third season (2017) in J1, he failed to prevent the relegation of Ventforet Kofu. The club sacked Yoshida after only 11 matches in J2 in the 2018 season. Out of the 102 J1 matches Yoshida has managed, he suffered 49 defeats (48%), drew 26 times and could only secure 27 victories (26.5%).

“This means he has a massive failure record in J1, having failed to win league matches in Japan’s top tier 73.5% of the time.”

Sharing Singapore Football Review’s post on his personal Facebook page, sports commentator Michael Ang added that FAS’ rumoured decision to hire Yoshida is a sign that “doomsday is approaching”.

Asking whether Singapore has “become a dumping ground for third-rate footballing talents from Japan,” Ang noted: “The person rumoured to be the next Lions coach has shown that he’s incapable of winning J1 league matches 73.5% of the time and unable to win J2 league games 82% of the time.

“His last match as coach of J2 club Ventforet Kofu (VK) was in April last year. He led VK to relegation from J1 in 2017.”

-/TISG