by After 40 years, when he went down to Portugal to defend Oliveirense, Miura arrived in Brazil at the age of 15, at a time when Sócrates and Zico mesmerized the world and extended his career in Brazil until he was 23. .homeland of boots. . A framework also financed by the father, a millionaire businessman who invested all the chips in his son’s dream.
He went through many clubs such as Juventus de São Paulo, Santos, Palmeiras, Matsubura, CRB, XV de Jaú and Coritiba. In Matsubara, the city of Cabara that hosts this club that formed Paraná, then at the age of 18, Miura seduced those who were there like the goalkeeper Marco António. An exotic and virtuous force of attraction. He announced an unstoppable Tsubasa, possessor of ball superpowers, with no rival, not even age, to weaken him. Marco António, today a dental surgeon, surprised by our contact and by the news that King Kazu does not give up in triumph, remembers the Japanese with many particularities.
“It’s always a surprise even by the standards we already know about Kazu Miura. 55 is an old age in football these days where fitness is worth a lot. It is a myth that should be studied by a university. He lived off speed, he wasn’t a goalkeeper like me,” he says and offers to take us on a delirious journey to 1986.
“At the time I was 22, he was 18. We were together for a year. We lived in the same hotel and the biggest curiosity is that I had a car, a rarity at the time, and I can say that I was the one who taught Kazoo to drive”, reports Marco António, perceiving the most legendary story. Spicy and fun.
Father had safe ‘fun’
“After every home game in our city, Cambara, there was a taxi waiting for Kazou to take him to Ourinhos. And there was a chartered plane that took him to Sao Paulo and he had already booked everything for a luxury hotel, where a girl was waiting for him. It was a “kindness” of his father named Naia, a Japanese businessman with a lot of money, to better control his son’s adolescence and provide him with safe entertainment. I say this because we were living through difficult times with cases of AIDS infection. I remember laughing when Kazu told me, after a difficult game we had with Athletico Paranaense, that in the hotel, already in bed, he had cramps in bed and was not looking good. Every Monday morning, he would come back and always say, without bragging about anything, “running 90 minutes, traveling and still going out, it’s not easy.” He was a figure! ”, expresses Marco António, flaunting the footballing attributes that were part of the striker’s handbook.
“He had great speed and courage. He went after the defenders, he was not deterred by the violence they had in their game. I ran a lot on both sides, ‘I pedaled hard’,” the former goalkeeper recalled, ending with another worrying retirement of Kazuo Miura.
Jump rope at 3am
“We had a very peaceful relationship, also because he was very devoted to everyone. Another interesting detail was their returns from Japan. In the first few days after returning, I would wake up several times, around two or three in the morning, and start jumping with a rope. I screamed “The Japanese is crazy!” He was curling up and saying he couldn’t sleep, it was jet lag.”
