Footballer of the Year
　Ryuichi Sugiyama, the retired international striker of Mitsubishi F.C. of Tokyo, was awarded the trophy Footballer of the Year for 1973, His decisive play contributed greatly to his team's winning the League and Cup double. This was the third and last time for him to win the award by the vote of the football writers. He had previously been selected Footballer of the Year in 1964 and 1970. After the 1973 season, he retired from Mitsubishi F.C. and returned to his home town to take over his family's business.

　World Cup Stars of D. P. R. of Korea
　The 4. 25 Football Club of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea has arrived in Japan for four friendly matches with local sides to be played in early March. The 4. 25team was founded three years ago by the Korean national players at that time and it has made many friendly international visits to South East Asian countries. The visiting team includes the stars of the World Cup '66 team in England. Pak Do Ik, who scored the decisive goal to beat the favoured Italians at Middlesbrough, is the coach of the4. 25 club. The other World Cup stars are playing with the team in Japan. They are Lee Chan Myung, the goalkeeper, Kan Bon Chil, the defender, and Yang Song Guk, the striker.

　To Build a New National Team
　The Japanese national team toured Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong last February. This was the first visit of the Japanese national side to South East Asia since1965 that was not connected with a championship.
　The Japanese team lost again to the Brazilian club, Juventus of Sao Paulo, in Singapore by a score of 1-0. Japanese and Juventus had met once before in Tokyo the previous January when the Brazilian won by a score of 2-0. Japan beat a Singapore selection by a score of 1-0. The only goal was scored by a newly-promoted striker, Toshio TAKABAYASHI.
　In Kuala Lumpur, the Japanese team gained its second victory of the tour against Malaysia. The score was also 1-0 and the scorer was another young player, Shusaku. HIRASAWA.
　The fourth and last match of the tour was played in Hong Kong against a local selection. The result was a 0-0 draw.
　Two Japanese stars famous in Asia were not in the Japanese touring side, Kunishige KAMAMOTO of Yanmar Diesel, Osaka was absent because of an ankle injury and Ryuichi SUGIYAMA of Mitsubishi F.C. Tokyo had retired from football one month before. The national trainer, Ken NAGANUMA, had to form a completely new line-up, especially in offence.
　With the exception of the two veteran defenders, Aritatsu OGI and Yoshitada YAMAGUCHI, the name of most of the Japanese players would not be familiar to the local spectators.
　Naganuma included six under-23 players in his squad of 19. Four university footballers were among them. They were Atsuyoshi FURUTA, Shigemi ISHII, Hiroyuki USUI and Toshio TAKABAYASHI. The two other young players were Yoshikazu NAGAI of Furukawa F.C., Tokyo and Mitsuo WATANABE of Towa-Fudosan, Utsunomiya.
　The tour was part of the preparation to build a new national team for the Asian Games in Teheran, and the Pre-Olympic tournament for Montreal. The Japanese national team is scheduled to make a European tour next June and July to watch the World Cup matches and to play some friendly matches in West Germany and England.

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