Most footballers retire before turning 40, but the Japanese Kazuyoshi Miura is 59 and is still playing and scoring goals. The "King Kazu" has just scored a brace (both by penalties) and became the oldest player to score at the Emperor's Cup, Japan's oldest football competition, played by all teams from J1 and J2 Leagues and winners of all 47 prefectures, often amateur teams from J3 league or below.
Miura scored two penalties for J3 team Fukushima United, beating 7-0 the amateur team Oyama Soccer Club. It happened a month since Miura scored his first goal in four years, an open field goal, in another Emperor's Cup qualifying match against Iwaki Furukawa, that also ended 7-0.
Miura is now entering his 42nd season: he first started playing in Brazil, where he had gone to pursue a football career when he was 15, and played for Santos, Palmeiras, Coritiba, and Matsubara. He returned to Japan in 1990, to Verdy Kawasaki, and was later loaned to Genoa (the first Asian player in the Serie A.
Miura also played in Croatia for Dimamo Zagreb in 1999 and most recently in Portugal for Oliveirense, in 2023. Since 2005, he is under contract with Yokohama FC and has been on several loans since then. Internationally, he is the second player with most goals for the Japanese national team, 55 goals in 89 matches between 1990 and 2000.
