Keiji Togashi/Synopsis

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Background

When Keiji Togashi was 10 years old, he joined a small team, and its coach was so impressed by his skills that he wrote a recommendation letter for him to join the junior team of a professional club. However, he was rejected due to his personality as a troublemaker and his family environment. He felt depressed and that is the moment when he met Tatsuya Fukuda, who observed him play for a while. He gave him tips to receive better the ball, and encouraged Togashi to learn the rest by himself.

Two years later, when Togashi was 12, he became a trainee in Esperion for a week. In those times, he was a forward. His first impression was that the level of the team was very high and that Esperion was the perfect environment for him to become a professional football player. Yūma Motoki was the first one to talk to him, and praised him for being able to keep up with the training. Fukuda greeted him and during the lunch, Kuroda informed him that Togashi was going to play in the friendly match Esperion had in the afternoon. He proposed Togashi to use his height to give Kuroda a lay-off assist. He did it during the match, however Kuroda did not shoot and passed back to Togashi, who was not expecting that and could not impact the ball. After an argument with Kuroda and Takeshima, Togashi realized that the reason of that was because it was just a friendly match and they were not playing seriously. Later on, the coach of the Junior team watched their training and Kuroda scored a goal, playing now, seriously. In the middle of the match, Togashi mocked the Esperion players by telling them that their list of priorities are "not getting injuring", "going pro" and "winning", that they are not aware of this weakness and that in a life-or-death match, they all would be useless. Togashi ended up fighting with Takeshima and as a result, he did not join Esperion.

Togashi continued playing for a middle school club until some weeks before the start of the story, in which Fukuda himself scouted him to join Tokyo City Esperion's Youth team.

Main Story

Keiji Togashi first appears in the meeting of the new players of Tokyo City Esperion's Youth team with their coaches. He arrived late accompanied by his motorcycle gang, which he left behind. He presented himself to his new teammates and Ashito Aoi handed him his uniform and informed him that they were going to be roommates. Togashi asked Ashito if he was one of the players promoted from the junior team but when Ashito replied that he passed the selection exam, Togashi said that then everything was fine.

Later on that day, there was a practice match between first-year players in Esperion's Youth team, and Fukuda announced that whoever stands out would be promoted directly to Esperion's Youth A-team. He teamed up with Ayuta Shima, Kanpei Kuroda, Wataru Kameyama, Ashito Aoi and Yuma Motoki, together with Daigo Benzen (the goalkeeper coach) as a goalkeeper. In the beginning of the match, he stole the ball from his teammate Kuroda and shot from the midfield line. His shot impacted the crossbar. Togashi was aprehended by Ashito, who said he should not steal the ball from his teammates. For the rest of the match, he tried to keep up with the increasing pace and at the end he managed to score a goal after moving forward and receiving a cross from Wataru Kameyama. At the end of the match, he was not chosen to be promoted to the A-team (only Yuma was instead).

One week later, Togashi overheard a call from Ashito to his brother Shun Aoi, and discovered that Ashito comes from a family with financial struggles. Three days later, after observing that Ashito had been secretely training his receiving skills with Eisaku Ōtomo and Sōichirō Tachibana during the nights, Togashi decided to train him himself. During the training, Togashi told Ashito how he met Fukuda the first time and that back then, he trained his receiving skills too. A few days later, Nozomi Date proposed a training in which the only way to the goal was through passing. He teamed up with Ashito, Jun Marchs Asari and Taira Nakamura, and observed how Ashito showed up his recent progress in his receiving skills.

When the B-team had a chance to train together with the A-team, Togashi realized the enormous difference between both teams. Some days later, he witnessed from afar a discussion between Ashito, Kuroda and Asari about the last play in a practice match against the members of the A-team.

Togashi was not chosen as a starter in the first match of the season between Esperion's Youth B-team and Seikyo High School. However, he replaced Katsuyori Isshiki during the half time. He played in the center-back position and he helped his team to not receive a goal in the second half. He did saw a yellow card after threatening a player for wasting time. Esperion won 4-3, and that evening all the team, including Togashi, celebrated the victory in a restaurant.

Togashi did not play in the second match against Kurume Daiichi. After that match, he learnt about Taira, Itsuki Nagano, Kuroda and Asari's promotion to team A, and Ashito's switch to defense. Togashi and Asari took the responsability of teaching Ashito about the fundamentals of being a defender (covering, to be more precise) in order to pave his way to his new position on the field. Some days later, Togashi was part of a training match that served the double purpose of adapting Ashito to the full-back position and to adapt Nagisa Akutsu to the forward position (as a replacement for the recently injured Kenta Yoshitsune).

After that training match, Togashi and Yuma were questioned by Anri Kaidō about Ashito's new postion as a full-back. Anri reveals that her dream is to become a coach and she believes that the reason of Ashito's switch is because of his vision. Anri states that this kind of players should be placed in the midfield, putting Xavi Hernández (a former FC Barcelona player) as an example. However, Yuma says that thinking that a good vision can only be used properly in the central lane is naive. In spite of that, both Togashi and Yuma believe that Fukuda's intentions with Ashito is to make a playmaker out of him.

Two months later, and without Ashito in the team, Esperion's Youth B-team had lost four matches in a row by 1-0. In order to destress the team, Togashi and Otomo propose Ashito and Tachibana to eat in a restaurant in Musashino. There they found Akinori Kaneda and Junnosuke Nakano, two former applicants of the selection exam to enter in Esperion's Youth team, alongside Ashito, Otomo and Tachibana. Both of them reveal they were new players for Tokyo Musashino FC (Tachibana's former team), which Esperion was going to play against within a month.

In the next match, against Tama Sports, Togashi was a starter in the right full-back position. Before the start of the match, Nozomi Date warned him that as a defender, Togashi's first job was to defend. At the beginning of the match, he saved a goal after a mistake from Ashito trying to stop a cross. Before the half-time, Yoshitsune scored the first goal after using Togashi for a wall pass. At the beginning of the second half, Togashi and Takeshima made a terrible mistake due to a lack of communication and Tama Sports scored the 1-1. In that same play, Isshiki got injured and was replaced by Takumu Numatsu, which lead to a change in the system. Makoto Shimizu moved to the center-back position and allowed the two full-backs, Togashi and Ashito to freely move into the attack. Later on in the game, Ashito catched a loose ball after a missed shot by Otomo, and put the ball on Togashi's head to score the last goal of the match for a final result of 2-1 for Esperion. Just after the match, Togashi was praised by Nozomi for his devotion to defense, and urged him to continue like this. Soon after, he was offered food by Anri (food that was initially intended to be handed to Ashito), and later met Takeshima. They both had a fight in front of Anri, due to their differences originated in the past.

Togashi was a starter in the match against Tokyo Musashino. After 15 minutes in the match, Togashi missed a long ball to Tachibana, and it was catched by Nakano. That ball arrived to Chiaki Mutou, who sent a long pass to Kaneda. That play was stopped by Ashito, him reciving a yellow card in the process. A few minutes later Togashi saved a goal from Kaneda. When Mutou scored the first goal of the match, Kento Sugawara proposed to come back to possession football, but Togashi, Tachibana and Takeshima preferred to continue believing in Nozomi's instructions. Before the second half, Togashi lost a race against Kaneda, who scored the 2-1 for Musashino. Almost immediately after, he lost another race to Kaneda, but this time Kuroda saved the goal on the line and crashed with the post. During the half-time, Nozomi asked Togashi, Takeshima and a recovered Kuroda to communicate better on the field. Togashi realized that his motivation so far (which was resentment against Takeshima and Kuroda) would not bring him any further in football and that he had to resolve himself to move forward as a football player. Already in the second half, Togashi decided to mark Kaneda specifically and he managed to stop him receiving a better coverage from Takeshima, Kuroda and Ashito. During a brief stop due to the injury of one of Musashino's players, Togashi, Takeshima and Kuroda talked for the first time openly, recognizing their strengths. He continued shutting down Musashino's forwards until the end of the match, which ended in a final result of 4-2 for Esperion's Youth B-team. The team received the visit of Tatsuya Fukuda at the end of the match, and he informed the starting from the day after, Togashi, Ashito, Otomo and Kuroda would be promoted to Esperion's Youth A-team.

The day after the match against Musashino, Togashi had his first training with the A-team. The practice consisted in an Osim-style rondo (named after Ivica Osim, former coach of the national team of Japan) with the reserve players of the A-team: Taira Nakamura, Kunitaka Matsunaga, Masanori Baba and Osieck Mino. Togashi clearly struggled in it, and barely kept up with the rest of the members of the rondo.

He was not chosen for the A-team to play against Kashiwa, and had to look from the grandstand alongside Otomo and Kuroda. When in the second half Ashito replaced an injured Taira, he was clearly disgusted, and at the end of the match, Anri, who was also watching the match, claimed that Togashi was jealous of Ashito and that he had been unconsciously looking down on him. Togashi rudely replied that women can not shut up. In the next training practices, he avoided Ashito, which, together with his lack of tendency to communicate with his teammates on the field, lead to Fukuda threatening him with dropping him back to the B-team if Togashi does not do anything about his lack of communication.

Feeling in danger of being dropped to the B-team, Togashi decided to swallow his own pride and ask Ashito to teach him football. He realized that Ashito's vision was abnormally huge. Once he got an idea of Ashito's playstyle, he recruited some teammates to organize a training session during the night: Takeshima, Asari, Yuma, Tachibana, together with Miyako Tachibana (Soichiro's sister) and Anri. During the first night, Togashi observed specifically Ashito and questioned him about what he was seeing at every moment of the practice. He decided that he wanted to enhance his vision, because when he was fired up, he lost sight of his surroundings and had to learn how to play more calmly. He also used that time to apologize to Anri for what he said at the end of the match against Kashiwa. That same Thursday evening, Fukuda appeared and proposed them a training practice consisting in the defenders playing holding a rope. In the first try, Togashi, Takeshima, Ashito and Asari failed at stopping the attack from Fukuda, and the latter encouraged Togashi to continue observing Ashito if he wants to enhance his vision. Fukuda told them that he would join them on Thursdays.

The day after, Togashi invited Otomo and Kuroda to join their evening practice, in which he continued improving his vision following Ashito's instructions. In another Thursday, at the end of the training, Fukuda asked Togashi how many red signboards were from going to the school from the dorms. Togashi failed and Ashito answered correctly instead (the answer was seven). Fukuda said that Togashi should pay a better attention to his surroundings. That evening, Fukuda invited Takeshima and Asari to train the day later with the A-team. The day after, Togashi, Ashito, Takeshima and Asari could practice their defense against the A-team. At the beginning of the practice match, Togashi lost a ball against Yoshitsune, but managed to recover it again after an immediate press realized by the four defenders. Soon after, he send a good long pass to Osieck. After that, Togashi and Takeshima stole a ball from Eita Takasugi. Later on, Togashi and Ashito stole a ball from Nagisa Akutsu, but Yuma introduced the loose ball inside the goal. The following nights, other members of the B-team, such as Ayuta Shima, Yui Masuko, Wataru Kameyama and Roan Mino joined the practice.

Due to the multiple out regulars for the match against Tokyo Vans, Togashi was chosen as a starter in the center-back position. That was a very exigent match for Togashi. Already at the beginning, he assisted Ashito to stop an attack from Tatsumi Juri. At the next play, he stopped a cross by Sakai Kento. In the next plays he helped Asari and Takeshima steal the ball from Hidaka and Yamagashi, respectively. Later, Togashi and Ashito blocked a shot from Nagano. After that play, Sakai received a ball from Tatsumi that Nagano let pass under his legs, but Enshin Akiyama blocked the shot. Togashi catched that loose ball and sent it to Tōji Kobayakawa, showing off his improved vision. That counter-attack was stopped with a foul by Tatsumi (who saw the yellow card). Togashi reprimanded Asari and Takeshima for kicking off the ball without any criterion. For that correction, Togashi was praised by both Ashito and Fukuda, and Akiyama encouraged the defenders to continue playing as they were doing and lose fear to fail, because Kobayakawa and himself were covering for their mistakes. Later on, Togashi received a pass from Asari and sent a long ball to Yōichi Kiriki. However, Yuma could not catch Kiriki's pass. At the end of the first half, Togashi lost the mark of Sakai, and Ashito could not cover the shot. Fortunately for Esperion, Akiyama saved the goal.

During the half time, Togashi, Ashito, Takeshima, Asari, Akiyama and Kobayakawa had a meeting to discuss the mistakes the first four were making, and how crucial it was for them to instruct all players and not just the defenders to keep the defense compact. Fukuda instructed them to guide Tokyo Vans to certain spots on the field so that they can recover the ball at those spots and start fast counter-attacks. Togashi implemented Fukuda's tactics during the second half. Esperion won that match 2-0 with goals from Yuma and Ashito (both assisted by Kiriki).

Three weeks later, Togashi watched the conference press for the promotion to the senior team of Yoshitsune, Yutaka Yamada and Kyo Shimura. Some weeks after, Fukuda announced that Togashi was chosen to be a starter for the match against Funabashi Academy High. That same day, Taira Nakamura told everyone about his retirement after that match. Taira promised to explain his decision to whoever visited him that evening but Togashi spent the night with Ashito analyzing the players from Funabashi. The match against Funabashi arrived. In the first minutes of the games, Esperion was highly pressured by the forwards of Funabashi, Trepone Rufin and Naofumi Futahara. Nagisa Akutsu asked Togashi to man-mark Trepone, request to which he agreed. The first time Trepone got the ball, he shot in spite of Togashi's opposition, but Akiyama saved the goal. After Esperion scored the first goal by using the five-lane strategy, Funabashi decided to play with five defenders, moving Gō Tokitō to the center-back position. This allowed Esperion's defenders to move up and Togashi started to participate in Esperion's attack. In particular, he connected with Ashito, Haruhisa Kuribayashi and Yuma but the last pass went out of the field. In the last play of the first half, Ashito's cross ended up under Sammy Rufin's control, who sent a long ball to his brother Trepone for a counter-attack. Trepone left Togashi behind with a nutmeg and gave the ball to Futahara and Tokito to score the goal but between Akutsu and Akiyama managed to save the situation.

In the second half, Trepone and Futahara switched positions and the latter became Togashi's new mark. In minute 58, Togashi could not block a cross from Futahara, and Trepone, now marked by Ashito scored the 1-1. Even worse, Akiyama got injured while trying to save the goal and had to be replaced by Kanji Nikaidō. In minute 73, he witnessed Ashito stopping one of Trepone's shots with his hand. Togashi cleared the ball, but referee pointed out that that was a penalty, and Ashito saw the red card. The match ended with a final result of 2-2. After the match, Togashi looked for Ashito but he was nowhere to be found. He found instead Anri crying on the street. She confessed to Togashi that she was in love with Ashito. At that time, both agreed to help each other by analyzing Esperion's games together, so that Togashi could become a better defender and Anri a better coach.

Two months later, Togashi played in the eighth-final J-Youth Cup match against Iwata Allegrio. Esperion won that match (presumably 3-0, but the final result is not fully confirmed). In the quarter final, the rival was Ganon Osaka and Togashi was chosen as a starter too. After a meeting with Fukuda, Togashi pointed out how Ashito was not playing at all since Funabashi's match. Some days later, he had a call with Anri to analyze the match against Iwata Allegrio. In the later match against Ganon Osaka, Togashi played, and despite scoring Esperion the first goal of the match (by Yuma), Ganon Osaka won with an overwhelming 5-1.

The last match of the regular season against Aomori Seiran finally arrived, and Togashi was chosen to be a starter in the right center-back position. In one of the first plays, he recovered a ball and passed it to Yamada. Being strongly pressured by Ryūki Haneda, Ashito passed to Togashi, but any pass to the right flank was blocked and he was forced to pass back to Ashito. Later on in the game, he received a pass from Tachibana and passed it to Takasugi.

After the half-time, coming back from the changing rooms, Togashi received Anri's visit and both of them thanked each other for being taught football. He also urged her not to miss what was going to happen at the beginning of the second half. In fact, after replacing Baba and Tachibana for Shimura and Asari, Togashi was placed in the midfielder position. In one of the first plays of the second half, he received a ball from Asari and gave it to Otomo. In the next attack from Esperion, Togashi moved further forward and placed himself as the lone striker. Togashi did a post play and protected the ball to send it to Takasugi, but he missed the pass. In the next play, he connected with Kiriki, who passed to Yuma, but Eito Makimura blocked the shot. In the next attack he managed to pass to Yamada, but he could not score. After that, he sent a pass to Kiriki, who then passed to Yamada, but Makimura intercepted the pass. Togashi passed to Yamada in the next play, who then sent a cross to Takasugi, but Makimura saved the goal. In the minute 60 of the game, Togashi connected with Ashito, who then sent a long pass to Yuma for him to score the first goal of the match with a lob. In a later play, he received a ball from Kiriki, and sent it to Takasugi, who passed it back to Kiriki, but Kiriki's shot was blocked by Ren Kitano. He did later on a similar play with Yuma and Ashito, but when the ball reached Otomo, Kitano again stole the ball from him to immediately lose it after that. After Haneda's equilizer, Yuki Konuma asked to be replaced and Aomori subbed in a new defender. Togashi wondered if Aomori was going to reinforce defense or resume the N-box strategy, which ended up being the correct answer (Kentaro Tsutsumi moved forward to the midfield). Already in the stoppage time, Togashi protected from Haneda and Renard Sho Moriyama a ball he received from Ashito, to send it back to him, but Ashito's shot was blocked this time by Kentaro Oba. In the last play of the game, Togashi and Akutsu ran for a counter-attack. Togashi procured to get away from Akutsu's trajectory, attracting with him Kanjiya and leaving Akutsu in a 1-on-1 against Moriyama. Akutsu scored the last goal of the match in that play for a final result of 2-1 for Esperion.

After Aomori Seiran's match, Ashito was invited by Hernán Garulla to train with the senior team for three days. Togashi, Otomo, Tachibana, Takeshima and Asari asked Ashito to clear a path for them to reach eventually the senior team.

Togashi played in the final of the Takamadonomiya Cup against Ganon Osaka, which Esperion won 1-0 thanks to Yamada's goal. Togashi is seen celebrating with his teammates in the field and in a later dinner. After the dinner, he casually found Anri, who noticed Togashi was unusually tired.. Also Anri revealed to be very affected by the cold weather. Some days later, Togashi was in the classroom thinking about the last matches in which he has been playing as a forward, with unsatisfactory results for Fukuda. While doing that, Otomo asked him if he had a girlfriend, question to which Togashi answered negatively. Due to Otomo being very noisy, he decided to go to the roof to be alone. Unfortunately for him, he overheard a private conversation between Ashito and Anri talking about Hana Ichijō moving to Spain. After that, he asked Ashito to get the gloves Ashito stores under his desk, to which Ashito agreed. Togashi gave these gloves to Anri in exchange of her help with understanding Togashi's bad movements as a forward.

In February, Togashi, alongside the rest of his teammates in Esperion, flew to Qatar to participate in the Alkass Cup. Already in Qatar, he asked Asari to translate an interview of two players of Barcelona FC (Alex Falco and Emmanuel Gato), Esperion's next opponent. Togashi, Asari, Otomo, Kuroda, Takeshima and Tachibana discussed the interview after after watching it.

In the first match of the tournament against Barcelona, Togashi was chosen a starter in the center-back position. At the exit of the changing room, Aoi Kaneko took a picture of Togashi, Yuma and Anri. During the first minutes of the match, he participated in the possession football Esperion tried to carry out. He managed to slow down a counter-attack when Gato had the ball after a shot from Ashito. Gato was forced to pass to Jill Xhaka, who passed to Falco but his pass got intercepted by Akutsu. It was minute 34 when Akutsu cleared a ball under Xhaka's control towards Togashi's direction. Unfortunately for him, Togashi slipped and Gato captured the ball instead, and assisted to Sino Ascari to score the first goal of the match. In the last play of the first half, Togashi redeemed himself and, with Kuroda's aid, stole the ball from Gato and passed it to Rindō Akiyama. That play ended up with a goal from Kuribayashi, assisted by Kiriki.

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