Angel City’s irrepressible Jun Endo finds ways to stand out for Japan in World Cup

There are a lot of words that could be used to describe Jun Endo.

Conformist, however, is not one of them, which goes a long way toward explaining why she’s one of just two NWSL players on Japan’s Women’s World Cup team.

“In Japan, I kind of struggled with being myself and having fun playing soccer,” said Endo, whose irrepressibility has made her arguably the most popular player on an Angel City roster full of stars. “Once I came to L.A., I kind of got rid of it. I enjoy soccer, I enjoy the fans who watch me play.”

She also enjoyed the freedom to dye her jet-black hair pink, dress in outfits that could most charitably be described as colorful and play with such abandon that many games see her cycle through every position but goalkeeper. In team photos she’s always the one on the end, grinning and waving while her teammates stand grim-faced before the camera.

“I want to change the idea that you have to be stern, you have to be serious all the time,” she said. “I want to be able to freely express that joy.”

But last month she found out even free spirits have to observe rules once in a while.

“Oooooh,” said Angel City captain Ali Riley when reminded of the doggie day care incident, which happened the morning Endo brought her dog to training and tied it to a staircase near the locker room. “Let’s just say we’re hoping that was a one-time emergency. We’re not promoting that kind of spontaneity at all.”

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Now that Endo, 23, is back with Japan for the World Cup, her pink hair is black again, someone else is looking after her terrier and her spontaneity has been replaced by compliance. In the team photo before the Zambia game, she stares straight at the camera — although the hint of a mischievous smirk seizes her face.

So she’s expressing herself the only place she can, on the field, where she collected a goal and assist 16 minutes apart in Japan’s 5-0 rout of Zambia in its World Cup opener Saturday, the most one-sided result through the tournament’s first four days.

“In Japan, the culture, it’s a little bit hard to stand out,” she said through translator Saki Watanabe. “Especially in terms of, like showing off who you are, like dyeing your hair bright colors. That made it very difficult for me to express myself.

“Once I came to the U.S. and to L.A., I saw a bunch of very unique personalities. So I feels like, ‘Oh, I can be myself and I can express myself the way I want to.’”

Japanese coach Futoshi Ikeda applauds that — as long as Endo doesn’t try it around the national team.

“She is a player who is trying new things in search of her own development in the American league.” Ikeda told the Associated Press. “Her speed and strong, accurate left foot will be a plus.”

The youngest of four children raised by a soccer-coach father and a mother who is a teacher, Endo grew up playing mostly with boys, something that helped her hone her phenomenal ballhandling skills. The family lived in Fukushima, the prefecture on Japan’s eastern Pacific Coast that was devastated by an earthquake in 2011 when Endo was 10. The quake heavily damaged her school while the resulting tsunami led to the accidental release of radioactive material from the nearby Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. And though the family did not have to evacuate their home, for years Endo was bullied by players at youth national team training camps who treated her as if she was contaminated.

When Japan beat the U.S. on penalty kicks four months later, winning the World Cup and dedicating the victory to the victims of Fukushima, it inspired Endo to follow in those women’s footsteps. She began her professional career in Tokyo, where she played four seasons, winning seven trophies, before joining Angel City and assisting on the first goal and scoring the second in the club’s NWSL debut.

It wasn’t long before her infectious enthusiasm and tireless play won over the fans.

“It fuels me,” she said of the support. “Whenever I have a bad game or we don’t get the result that I want, the fans are the ones that help me, they send me positive messages. So it kind of goes both ways.”

Endo is always the first player out of the dressing room for warm-ups, sometimes taking the field 20 or more minutes ahead of her teammates, headphones on and cleats off, slowly walking the turf with a ball at her stockinged feet. Endo is so adept at ballhandling she said she can dribble a golf ball or a soccer ball while jumping rope. (Don’t try that at home, kids.)

And though the lineup usually lists her as a forward or attacking midfielder, she doesn’t always respect positions. That, too, is part of being a free spirit.

“There isn’t like an exactly set position,” she said. “It’s not necessarily that the team told me to be here, be there and be everywhere. It’s more my playing style. That’s why I move basically all over the field.”

Her relentless play with Angel City nearly cost her a World Cup opportunity, however, when she sustained ligament damage in her left knee in a late-May loss to the OL Reign. Endo wound up missing all of June, but then proved her fitness by playing 76 minutes in two early July games before boarding a plane for New Zealand.

Endo isn’t comfortable enough with her English to speak publicly without a translator, so she mostly stays to herself. But if Japan advances to the knockout rounds, as it did four years ago when a teenage Endo made two starts and assisted on what proved to be the deciding goal in a crucial win over Scotland, the team’s first two games could come against New Zealand, captained by Riley, and the U.S., whose roster includes Angel City teammates Julie Ertz and Alyssa Thompson.

“I would be excited to play against them,” Endo said. “When I was growing up, I would watch these other countries and I always kind of admired them. Now that I’m in a position to be able to play against them, I’m even more excited.”

She might have to tone that down a little around her Japanese teammates.