Whistle!

Whistle! (ホイッスル!, Hoissuru!) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Daisuke Higuchi, which was adapted into a 39-episode anime television series, broadcast exclusively by the anime television network, Animax across Japan and South Korea.

The football (soccer) associated manga was published in Japan in Shueisha's Weekly Shōnen Jump. Whistle! is published in English by Viz Media under the Shonen Jump label. The manga was written in homage to the 1998 and 2002 World Cup Finals tournaments which took place in France and Japan/South Korea respectively.

Story
Whistle! is about a middle school boy named Shō Kazamatsuri. He transfers from Musashinomori School to Sakura Josui Junior High School for better hopes to make the soccer team, since he never got a game at his old school due to his small stature. Yūko Katori, his teacher, introduces him as a former star of the famed Musashinomori team, causing his classmates to be wrongly ecstatic. Right after that, one of the players, Tatsuya Mizuno, reveals that he was never a regular. In other words, since he never got the chance to play, Shō is a poor player. Shō struggles to improve his skill so he can make the team at his new school and to ignore the drastic disadvantage he has due to his height.