Hidetoshi Nakata

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Hidetoshi Nakata
Personal information
Full name Hidetoshi Nakata
Date of birth January 22, 1977 (1977-01-22) (age 30)
Place of birth    Kofu, Yamanashi Prefecture, Japan
Height 1.75 m : 72 kg
Playing position Midfielder
Youth clubs
1986–1989
1989–1992
1992–1995		 Hokushin Boys Soccer Club
Kofu Kita Jr. H.S.
Nirasaki H.S.
Senior clubs1
Years Club App (Gls)*
1995–1998
1998–2000
2000–2001
2001-2004
2004
2004-2005
2005-2006		 Bellmare Hiratsuka
Perugia
Roma
Parma
→ Bologna (loan)
Fiorentina
→ Bolton Wanderers (loan)
Total		 085 (16)
048 (12)
030 0(5)
067 0(5)
017 0(2)
0330(0)
024 0(1)
289 (41)   
National team
1997–2006 Japan 077 (11)

1 Senior club appearances and goals
counted for the domestic league only.
* Appearances (Goals)

Hidetoshi Nakata (中田 英寿 Nakata Hidetoshi; born January 22, 1977 in Yamanashi Prefecture), is a Japanese former football player. He was one of the most famous Asian footballers of his generation.

Nakata began his professional career in 1995 and won the Asian Football Confederation Player of the Year award in 1997 and 1998, the Scudetto with A.S. Roma in 2001, played for Japan in three FIFA World Cup tournaments(1998, 2002 and 2006) and played in the Olympics twice (1996 and 2000). In 2005, he was made the Knight of the Star of Italian Solidarity, one of the Italy's highest honours, for improving the country's image overseas.[1] Nakata is known as a fashion icon, regularly attending runway shows and wearing designer fashion.

Nakata announced his retirement at age 29 on July 3, 2006 after a ten-year career that included seven seasons in the Italian Serie A and a season in the English Premiership.

Pelé named Hidetoshi Nakata in his 125 Top Living Footballers in March 2004.

Contents

[edit] Biography

Nakata began his professional career at age 18 in 1995, with J. League side Bellmare Hiratsuka (now Shonan Bellmare). He represented Japan at the 1996 Olympics, where Japan upset Brazil.[2] Nakata also appeared in the 2000 Olympics.

He made his senior national team debut in May 1997 against South Korea and was a key member of the Japanese side that qualified for the 1998 FIFA World Cup, setting up all three Japanese goals in the qualification play-off against Iran. After the World Cup in France, he moved to Perugia in Italy's Serie A.

In January 2000, after one and a half seasons at Perugia, Nakata moved to Roma, whom he helped win the Serie A championship with two late goals to secure a 2-2 draw against league rivals Juventus. He also helped Japan reach the final of the 2001 Confederations Cup that season, but left the national team before the final to join Roma for their final league matches.[3]

In 2001, he joined Parma, where he played for two and a half seasons.

Nakata played in every match for Japan at the 2002 FIFA World Cup, co-hosted by South Korea and Japan, and scored a goal against Tunisia.

In January 2004, Nakata joined Bologna where he played the remainder of the 2003/04 season before moving to Fiorentina, where he played the 2004/05 season.

In August 2005, Nakata moved to Premiership side Bolton Wanderers on loan.

At the 2006 FIFA World Cup, Nakata played in all three matches for Japan, losing to Australia and Brazil, and drawing with Croatia. Although Nakata has appeared in every World Cup match that Japan has played thus far, he was not selected for the country's Asian Cup-winning squads in either 2000 or 2004.

On July 3, 2006, Nakata announced his retirement from professional football and the Japanese national team on his personal website "I decided half a year ago that I would retire from the world of professional football... after the World Cup in Germany," Nakata wrote, "I will never again stand on the pitch as a professional player. But I will never give up football."[4][5]

Nakata has cited the popular manga and anime series, Captain Tsubasa, as his primary inspiration in choosing football as a career.[6]

On June 7, 2007, he made an appearance in Thu Wa Na Youth Training Stadium in Yangon, Myanmar , in a charity game. He played 45 minutes each for the red and the white teams made up of myanmar footballers and celebrities. The jerseys of both teams read "We Love Nakata". [7]

On June 9, 2007, he made an appearance on the pitch again when he played for Luís Figo's Charity Match.

[edit] Clubs


[edit] Club career stats

Season Club Country Div Apps Goals Assists Team Record
1995 Bellmare Hiratsuka Flag of Japan Japan 1 26 8 ? 11th place
1996 Bellmare Hiratsuka Flag of Japan Japan 1 26 2 ? 11th place
1997 Bellmare Hiratsuka Flag of Japan Japan 1 21 3 9 8th place
1998 Bellmare Hiratsuka Flag of Japan Japan 1 12 3 4 11th place
1998-99 Perugia Flag of Italy Italy 1 33 10 4 14th place
1999-00 Perugia Flag of Italy Italy 1 15 2 5 10th place
Roma Flag of Italy Italy 1 15 3 2 6th place
2000-01 Roma Flag of Italy Italy 1 15 2 1 Champions
2001-02 Parma Flag of Italy Italy 1 24 1 1 10th place
2002-03 Parma Flag of Italy Italy 1 31 4 4 5th place
2003-04 Parma Flag of Italy Italy 1 12 0 1 5th place
Bologna Flag of Italy Italy 1 17 2 3 12th place
2004-05 Fiorentina Flag of Italy Italy 1 20 0 2 16th place
2005-06 Bolton Wanderers Flag of England England 1 20 1 2 8th place

[edit] National team

[edit] Honors

[edit] Fashion

Outside of football Nakata has shown interest in fashion, attending runway shows, wearing designer clothing and sporting colorful haircuts. He dyed his hair red for the 1998 FIFA World Cup, hoping to attract the attention of European scouts, and Japanese hairstylist Aki Watanabe credits him as a trendsetter in hair styles.[8] Andrea Tenerani, photographer for GQ in Italy said of Nakata, "He's perfect; he's like a model. And he's totally obsessed with fashion,"[9] and Calvin Klein designer Italo Zucchelli said, "(Nakata) plays with fashion like all of them now, but in a cooler, more sophisticated way than many others." [10] He is currently featured in a fashion spread on GQ Magazine.

[edit] Notes and references

  1. ^ "Arise, Sir Nak!", This Is Lancashire, 2005-10-14. Retrieved on 2006-07-03. 
  2. ^ "Japan in need of miracle", 2006 FIFA World Cup, 2006-06-21. Retrieved on 2006-07-03. 
  3. ^ "Just making the final was a triumph for cup co-host", Associated Press, 2001-06-11. Retrieved on 2006-07-03. 
  4. ^ "Japan and Bolton midfielder Nakata to retire", Reuters, 2006-07-03. Retrieved on 2006-07-03. 
  5. ^ "To live is to journey, and to journey is to live.", nakata.net, 2006-07-03. Retrieved on 2007-01-22. 
  6. ^ ‘I don’t understand why people are football fans. I don’t like to watch any kind of sport’ - by Jonathan Northcroft, The Sunday Times, January 1, 2006.
  7. ^ [1]
  8. ^ Efe Sodje. "Footballers ... haircuts. Not always the best combination!", BBC, 2002. Retrieved on 2006-07-04. 
  9. ^ J. J. Martin. "Feast for marketers: It's all about soccer", International Herald Tribune, 2002-07-01. Retrieved on 2006-07-04. 
  10. ^ Eric Wilson. "BLEACH IT LIKE BECKHAM: World Cup of hair style", New York Times, 2006-06-22. Retrieved on 2006-07-04. 

[edit] External links

Preceded by
Flag of Iran Khodadad Azizi		 Asian Footballer of the Year
1997		 Succeeded by
retained
Preceded by
retained		 Asian Footballer of the Year
1998		 Succeeded by
Flag of Iran Ali Daei


Flag of Japan Japan squad - 1998 FIFA World Cup Flag of Japan

1 Kojima | 2 Narahashi | 3 Soma | 4 Ihara | 5 Omura | 6 Yamaguchi | 7 Ito | 8 Nakata | 9 Nakayama | 10 Nanami | 11 Ono | 12 Lopes | 13 Hattori | 14 Okano | 15 Morishima | 16 Saito | 17 Akita | 18 Jo | 19 Nakanishi | 20 Kawaguchi | 21 Narazaki | 22 Hirano | Coach: Okada
Flag of Japan Japan squad - 2002 FIFA World Cup Flag of Japan

1 Kawaguchi | 2 Akita | 3 Matsuda | 4 Morioka | 5 Inamoto | 6 Hattori | 7 H. Nakata | 8 Morishima | 9 Nishizawa | 10 Nakayama | 11 Suzuki | 12 Narazaki | 13 Yanagisawa | 14 Santos | 15 Fukunishi | 16 K. Nakata | 17 Miyamoto | 18 Ono | 19 Ogasawara | 20 Myojin | 21 Toda | 22 Ichikawa | 23 Sogahata | Coach: Troussier
Flag of Japan Japan squad - 2006 FIFA World Cup Flag of Japan

1 Narazaki | 2 Moniwa | 3 Komano | 4 Endo | 5 Miyamoto | 6 K. Nakata | 7 H. Nakata | 8 Ogasawara | 9 Takahara | 10 Nakamura | 11 Maki | 12 Doi | 13 Yanagisawa | 14 Santos | 15 Fukunishi | 16 Oguro | 17 Inamoto | 18 Ono | 19 Tsuboi | 20 Tamada | 21 Kaji | 22 Nakazawa | 23 Kawaguchi | Coach: Zico
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidetoshi_Nakata"
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