Tom Byer is hailed by his football colleagues, the AFC, National Football Federations, international media and scores of pro footballers he has taught and inspired over the last 25+ years, as the World's leading grassroots technical coach expert.

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Byer played briefly in Japan in the late 1980s, before retiring to work as a youth coach. Today, many in Japan see him as a major catalyst behind the country’s rising status as a global soccer power, responsible for increasing soccer’s popularity and teaching fundamental skills to hundreds of thousands of children, including many of the nation’s most celebrated players. In 1988, the year Byer hung up his cleats, the Japanese men’s and women’s national teams weren’t even successful regionally. In 2011, the Japanese men took home the Asian Cup for a record fourth time, and the Japanese women’s national team won its first World Cup title.

Although what Byer achieved is notable, how he did it is the fascinating part. He started off running a no-name, grass-roots soccer clinic and within a decade, he’d become a fixture in Japan’s most popular children’s comic book and a character in the country’s leading morning kids’ show. Tom Byer is the Mr. Rogers of Japanese soccer. There’s nothing in America like him, and as both the Japanese and American men’s squads prepare for World Cup qualifying matches next month*, it’s worth thinking about what the U.S. program could learn from Byer’s Japanese success.