Devour the Geniuses: Daisuke Morimoto’s ‘Catenaccio’ Vol. 7 and the Sacred Art of Italian Defending

Serialized since October 2022 in Shueisha's Weekly Young Jump, Daisuke Morimoto’s football manga Catenaccio has carved an unforgettable niche in sporting fiction.

As its title declares, it is a manga dedicated to that legendary Italian defensive doctrine: catenaccio, the padlock that suffocates romantic football.

First published as a raw, electrifying one-shot on Tonari no Young Jump in January 2022 before debuting in the magazine proper in April,
​it ignited widespread acclaim among football purists, surging past 300,000 copies in circulation by February 2025.

I was born without divine talent.

I know in my bones that I am ordinary.

Yet that is not an excuse to bow my head and surrender.

“Devour the geniuses.”

Armed with a singular, ferocious obsession: an insatiable thirst for victory,

protagonist Yataro Arashiki crosses continents to forge his body and spirit in the crucible of Italian football.

 

For anyone whose spirit has ever bruised against the effortless dazzle of natural talent,
yet refused to lay down their arms—clawing, adapting, fighting through the mud—this manga is an emotional revelation.
Among ongoing football comics, it is the one work whose next volume arrival makes the chest ache with anticipation.

 

 

The Narrative Arc

High school center-back Yataro Arashiki dreams of reaching the summit of European football, but crashes out in despair during the prefectural tournament final.

In attendance, however, is Silvio Testa, chief scout of Italian top-flight club FC Olivero. Seeing Arashiki's pathological hunger for victory as an authentic, dangerous gift, Testa offers the young man an audacious leap directly from Japanese high school to the Italian peninsula.

“The center-back position is the trench where the ordinary man, ignored by the football gods, crushes divine talent with everything he possesses.”

Landing on Italian soil, Arashiki is thrown into the unforgiving reserve ranks.
Surrounded by an unfamiliar language, tempestuous teammates, and partisan ultras, he takes his first blood-and-sweat steps as a professional.
On the pitch, he is not merely protecting a goalmouth; he is fighting to prove his right to exist on the pitch. As a defensive cornerstone and as a human being, he hardens into stone.

 

Inside Volume 7

Battling for an opportunity to earn promotion to FC Olivero's senior squad, CB Yataro Arashiki faces Neomenia—revered as the undisputed apex of Italian youth football.
From the opening whistle, FC Olivero is pushed onto the back foot by Neomenia's relentless onslaught, orchestrated by Davide Bianco, a towering, world-class physical striker. Confronted by dazzling, overwhelming natural talent, can Arashiki discover a breach in the fortress…!?

“Football doesn’t belong only to you geniuses.”

This volume, once again, is a tour de force of raw sporting adrenaline.