Jobs4Football meets Kenichi Yatsuhashi
From moving to New York to pursue a career in painting to coaching in Ghana, Qatar and Sri Lanka under difficult circumstances – Meet the Japanese coach with a worldwide resume and nearly 30 years coaching experience.
Kenichi Yatsuhashi, like many, had dreams of becoming a professional footballer when he was growing up in Japan, and even travelled across the world to Brazil at 17 in 1986 to pursue his goal, but unfortunately despite being close he never quite achieved this ambition.
At that point, a career in football was over for Yatsuhashi who then decided to swap Brazil for the Big Apple and follow his second dream by studying fine art.
He said: “I went to New York for university, not for football reasons. I decided to go after a career in painting but whilst I was there, I also got into doing part time coaching which quickly turned into full time, and my career path completely changed.”
“In New York there are a lot of immigrants and children of immigrant parents so there were a lot of players there at the time that didn’t speak English fluently or at all. At that time I couldn’t speak English that well either, so it was a unique experience for me because I had to communicate with the players without using verbal language.”
Yatsuhashi’s coaching career started in 1992 where he worked with various youth clubs in the city, and he would go on to coach in the USA for 20 years in a number of instructor and head coach roles at colleges and universities across Five Boroughs.
In 2012, the 52-year-old left America and had brief spells as the technical director and U16 national youth team coach for the Kyrgyz Republic and as an academy coach in Qatar before obtaining his first position as first team head coach for Ghanian club Accra Hearts of Oak in 2015.
In the previous season Hearts of Oak had been battling relegation for the majority of the campaign, but in his only season with the club Yatsuhashi had them sitting 4th in the table only two points behind the leaders at that time before his contract was surprisingly terminated.
The former Olimpica de Lavras amateur player, managed three other teams in Ghana, including coaching Aduanna Stars FC in the 2018 CAF Confederation Cup followed by a brief spell in his home country as a technical advisor before taking on his current role as Navy Sea Hawks manager in the Sri Lankan Super League in January this year.
He said: “In January 2020 I was coaching but the pandemic hit meaning I had to stop, and at the time there was not many opportunities around, so I took a break from coaching for a year. I always wanted to go back, and I didn’t want to have this break for longer than one year, so I thought this was the perfect time to go to Sri Lanka where this opportunity was offered, and I would be able to experience another country and enjoy living and working there.”
“Interestingly this is the first time in my football career that the club management people trust me and they let me do my work without any interference. When I was in Africa and other Asian countries there was always a strong interference by the club management people, so in that regard I’m enjoying being here a lot as I’m be able to use my methods to make the players and team better, and you can see they have improved a lot in this time.”
Club management isn’t the only off the field issue Yatsuhashi has had to deal with in his career, being from Asia he has admitted that he has always felt like an ‘outsider’ when coaching in different countries. He said: “I think many Asian people in the United States will agree with me that we were not seen as one of them, even though many Asians are born and raised there they still aren’t seen as an American, so we are always outsiders, and we have to deal with many challenges because of that.”
“I think in the initial stages I’m always seen as the outsider in any of the countries I’ve been to, but it’s nothing to be surprised about, I have to let my work speak for itself. The best example of this is when I went to Ghana and coached one of the biggest clubs there, Hearts of Oak, and the backlash was huge, but when we started winning matches the fans started accepting me for what I have done and forgot about who I was and where I came from.”
“It was difficult, but I did my best to never let it get to me and I think if anything it pushed me harder and motivated even more because it was a situation where I had to push on through or quit and I don’t have it in me to quit, so I just have to do my best and I managed to make it happen.”
Currently Yatsuhashi’s Navy Sea Hawks FC sit top of the Sri Lankan Super League with no goals conceded, but he admits that this will be his final season as a first team head coach once the campaign finishes in December.
“After December this year I am going back to youth coaching. I think it has been an interesting journey and I have learned a lot of things coaching at different clubs in different countries and now I want to give back what I have learnt to youth players, but more for the youth coaches who need some mentorship and who are just getting started in their career.”
Whatever the future holds for Yatsuhashi, he can look back on his career as a first team coach with great pride after achieving progress and success in every country he has managed in despite often having to deal with difficult circumstances off the pitch. This experience along with his knowledge of the game will ensure he is a top mentor in the years to come.