Isagi Yoichi

History

Isagi Yoichi has been an aspiring world class striker since childhood, idolizing Noel Noa. Chasing his dream, he went on to play for his high school's football team. However, in a critical qualifier match where they needed one more goal, he chose to pass to teammate instead of taking the shot himself. His teammate missed and they lost the match, causing Isagi to blame himself and realize that he needed to be more selfish in order to succeed. Following this, he received an invitation to a training program known as the Blue Lock Project.

Introduction

Showing up at the building for the training program, Isagi runs into Kira, a player that was on the opponent's team during the qualifiers. Kira admits that he was impressed by Isagi's skill as well. Inside the building, Ego introduces the hundreds of players inside to the training program, stating that the program is meant to hone the most egoistic and selfish striker to carry the Japanese national team to win the World Cup, ignoring usual tactics surrounding teamwork. Isagi and 299 other players agree to join the program.

After traveling to the specialized facility for the training, they were provided their rankings and Isagi was ranked 299 out of the 300 players. With the rankings, Isagi was also assigned a room with 11 other players which included Kira. They also learnt that the top 5 would be able to represent Japan in the U-20 World Cup, while elimination would mean disbarment from professionally representing Japan ever again.

In the first test, the players were required to play a game of tag with a soccer ball, needing to dodge or kicking the ball into another player to tag them. After minutes of playing, Isagi was tagged with the ball with barely any time left and had an injured Igaguri (the player ranked 300th) as an easy picking. However, Isagi knew that he had to go after somebody stronger if he were to improve. Bachira, a skilled and talented dribbler, agrees and takes the ball instead to aim at Kira but fails to tag him repeatedly. With only a few seconds left, the ball falls to Isagi's feet. Rather than let Bachira be eliminated without doing anything, he chooses to let his ego take over and kicked the ball into Kira's face, thereby eliminating him.

First Selection

As part of the first selection, a group of five teams had to face off against one another. The top two teams would get to proceed as a whole, while only the top scorers from the losing teams could proceed. This resulted in infighting and ball-snatching within Isagi's Team Z, resulting in a crushing defeat in their first match against Team X, who worked together to allow their top player Barou to score.

For their upcoming matches, Isagi realizes to make use of each of their individual "weapons", so that each of them has a chance to shine and score. However, he did not his own "weapon" himself. He went on to discover it during their match against Team Y, where he realized that he was able to sense dangers and goal chances. Using this, Isagi intercepts key passes and managed to score the winning goal. With this, he discovers his weapon - the ability to read the field and being able to detect potential goal chances.

This came into play during their next game against Team W when things were critical due to Kuon's betrayal, where Isagi was able to detect a goal chance that no one else could when Chigiri decided to stop letting his fear of injuries hold him back. Chigiri burst forward with an unmatchable speed, and managed to equalize with Isagi's pass.

Playing with only 10 men against Team V, the strongest squad, due to Kuon's betrayal, Isagi was able to lead his team to equalize by predicting Reo and Nagi's movements. Spurred by this, Nagi was awakened and brought Team V close to victory. Kuon, who was impressed by Team Z, decided to tackle Nagi to the ground to save Team Z from losing, resulting in a red card for him. In an all-or-nothing effort, Team Z burst forward after saving the free-kick. However, Isagi's goal scent disappeared as Nagi appeared to cut him off after Bachira's pass. Knowing that Isagi cannot out-trap Nagi when it comes to the first touch of the ball, he decides to shoot in a direct shot - the final piece of the puzzle in his goal-scoring formula - and win the game, allowing Team Z to pass the first selection.

Abilities

Isagi possesses an unrivaled ability to read the game and field, using his vision to "smell" potential goals and pick up the most ideal positioning to either intercept passes or score direct shots. He falls under the Raumdeuter archetype, being able to exploit unused space in the field to disrupt the opponent's backlines.

Skills:

• Spatial Awareness
• Direct Shot
• Metavision
• Flow State