Hidetoshi Nakata,OSSI (中田 英寿,Nakata Hidetoshi; born 22 January 1977) is a Japanese former professionalfootballer who played as amidfielder. Considered one of the best talents to come from anAsian Football Confederation (AFC) country in the late 1990s and early 2000s,[3] Nakata became the first ever AFC player to be nominated for theBallon d'Or.
Nakata announced his retirement at the age of 29 on 3 July 2006, after a ten-year career that included seven seasons in the ItalianSerie A and a season in the EnglishPremier League. In March 2004,Pelé named Nakata in hisFIFA 100, a list of the top living footballers at the time. Nakata was one of only two Asian footballers on the list.
Nakata began his professional career at the age of 18 in 1995, withJ1 League sideBellmare Hiratsuka (nowShonan Bellmare). He played many matches as an attacking midfielder from his first season and the club won the1995 Asian Cup Winners' Cup, the first Asian title in the club's history. In the final againstAl-Talaba, he scored the winning goal in the 81st minute.[6] From 1996, he became a regular player and he was selected for theJ.League Best XI in 1997. After the1998 World Cup in France, Nakata was signed byPerugia in Italy'sSerie A for 4 millionU.S. dollars,[7] becoming the second Japanese player ever to appear in the Italian top league afterKazuyoshi Miura had done it forGenoa four years earlier. In his first season in Italy, Nakata scored 10 goals, his single-season highest total.
In January 2000, after one and a half seasons at Perugia, Nakata moved toRoma for 42 billionlire, helping the team win thescudetto.[8][9] The highlight of Nakata's career at Roma came on 6 May 2001 in a Serie A match againstJuventus atStadio Delle Alpi. After replacingFrancesco Totti in the second half with Roma trailing 0–2, Nakata netted with a 30-yard goal beyond JuventusgoalkeeperEdwin van der Sar's reach, with 11 minutes left in the match. He then helped Roma score the equalizer when his fierce drive from outside the box was parried by Van der Sar into the path ofVincenzo Montella, who scored for Roma in the last minute. The match ended with a 2–2 draw and Roma maintained a six-point margin at the top of the league table.[10]
In the summer of 2001, Nakata penned a four-year deal withParma[11] for a transfer fee of 55 billion lire, a world record payment for an Asian player which would not be broken for 14 years.[12][13][14] He made his club debut on 8 August 2001 in their 0–2 defeat atStadio Ennio Tardini againstLille in the first leg of the third round of theChampions League.[15] More than one month later, on 23 September, Nakata scored his first goal for Parma inSerie A at home overBrescia, which also proved to be the winning goal of the match.[16] Nakata played there for two and a half seasons, where he scored a crucial goal after coming on as a substitute in the first leg of the2002 Coppa Italia final against Juventus,[17] which Parma eventually won.[18]
In January 2004, Nakata played forBologna where he played the remainder of the 2003–04 season before moving toFiorentina, where he played the following season. In August 2005, Nakata moved toPremiership sideBolton Wanderers on loan. During his season at Bolton, which would be the last of his professional career, he scored once in the league, in a 2-0 win overWest Bromwich Albion.[19]
He was a key member of the Japanese side that qualified for the1998 World Cup, scoring five goals in qualification matches and setting up all three Japanese goals in thequalification play-off againstIran. He helped Japan reach the final of the2001 Confederations Cup but left the national team before the final to join Roma for their final league matches.[22] Nakata played in all four of Japan's matches at the2002 World Cup, co-hosted bySouth Korea and Japan, scoring the second goal of a 2–0 first round win againstTunisia.
At the2006 World Cup, Nakata played in all three matches for Japan, losing toAustralia andBrazil, and drawing withCroatia. His performance against Croatia earned him a Man of the Match award.[23] After the 2006 FIFA World Cup, on 3 July 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."[24][25] In a 2014 interview inTMW Magazine, Nakata confirmed that he had retired at such a young age because he was no longer enjoying football, and wanted instead to see what was going on in the world.[26]
Despite Nakata playing every match in Japan's first three World Cup appearances, he was not selected for the country'sAsian Cup-winning squads in2000 and2004. In total, he was capped 77 times for Japan, scoring 11 goals, 9 of which came in official FIFA competitions.[21]
A quick, creative, and hard-workingattacking orcentral midfielder, with an eye for goal, Nakata was known for his technical ability, agility, vision, passing, and his ability to make attacking runs into the penalty area and score goals; he also possessed a powerful shot from outside the box.[3][27][28][29][30]
Outside football, Nakata has shown interest in fashion, attending runway shows, wearing designer clothing and sporting colorful haircuts. He dyed his hair blond for the1998 World Cup, hoping to attract the attention of European scouts. Japanese hairstylist Aki Watanabe credits him as a trendsetter.[31] Andrea Tenerani, photographer forGQ in Italy said of Nakata, "He's perfect; he's like a model. And he's totally obsessed with fashion."[32]Calvin Klein designerItalo Zucchelli said, "(Nakata) plays with fashion like all of them now, but in a cooler, more sophisticated way than many others."[33] He is one of the models featuring theCalvin Klein underwear campaign 2010. He was featured in the July 2007 US version ofGQ with a 12-page spread on fall fashion. He was featured inGQ in his home country in December 2011.[34]
Nakata (middle) at a fashion event in Tokyo, November 2016
Often regarded as a JapaneseDavid Beckham,[35] Nakata is an editor-at-large atMonocle magazine at the invitation of his friendTyler Brûlé, who serves as the magazine's editor-in-chief.[36] Nakata has cited the popularmanga andanime series,Captain Tsubasa, as his primary inspiration in choosing football as a career.[37] In recent years, he has also been an active supporter of Special Olympics football and participated in the 2010 Special Olympics Unity Cup[38] in South Africa during the World Cup. Nakata was named a Global Ambassador for Special Olympics in 2014.[39]
Towards the end of 2015, Nakata entered into a partnership with Kee Club inHong Kong to open Koko, a Hong Kong-based restaurant that serves sakes created by Nakata himself. He has developed his own line of sake as well as creating his own mobile educational app, "Sakenomy". Expressing interest in educating the public about sake, Nakata stated, "People recognise brands of wine but not usually brands of sake. There is a lack of information and branding when it comes to sake. That’s why I thought I needed to create a brand that people can recognise and understand. My purpose is to expand the market for all sake not just my own. You can pair any type of cuisine with sake. It can go with French, Italian, even Chinese food, not just Japanese cuisine."[40]
^AS Roma SpA bilancio 30.06.2001 [AS Roma SpA Report and Accounts on 30 June 2001] (PDF, require login and purchase) (in Italian). CCIAA] (Italian company filing office).
^"Parma, non solo Nakata".La Gazzetta dello Sport (in Italian). 6 July 2001.Archived from the original on 6 October 2014. Retrieved13 April 2013.
^Guerri, Cristina (January 2014)."In viaggio con Nakata" [On the road with Nakata].TMW Magazine (in Italian). p. 10.Archived from the original on 3 April 2014. Retrieved1 September 2014.Hidetoshi Nakata ha scelto di appendere le scarpette al chiodo ancora giovanissimo. "Il motivo? Non mi divertivo più. Ho preferito scoprire cosa c'è nel mondo, e devo dire che ho imparato molto". (Hidetoshi Nakata chose to hang up his boots while still very young. "The reason? I wasn't enjoying it any more. I preferred to find out what was going on in the world, and I must say I learnt a lot".
^"Dal Giappone con furore" [From Japan, with furor] (in Italian). Football Magazine Italia. 13 May 2014. Archived fromthe original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved1 October 2015.
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