Hi all, as you probably know, striker Naohiro Takahara joined SV Hamburg a few weeks ago. Can someone here describe what kind of player he is ? He was praised to be the best japanese player at the moment, what are his strengths and weaknesses ? Do you think that he will be able to make it in Europe ??
Interesting. . . On Chievo's news site then mentioned that Yanagisawa is the best player in Japan at the moment, and in Feyenoord's news release they said that Naoya Kikuchi is considered the best player. When Alex Santos was briefly on the verge of signing in England, he was considered the best player in Japan, and of course just before Nakamura signed with Reggina, he was the best player in Japan. Im confused . . . . I guess I must be missing the obvious point. . . . they are ALL the best player in Japan! To answer your question though, Takahara is an excellent goal poacher. He has good speed and can make very good cuts into the box, but he is not really viewed as a great dribbler. His passing can also sometimes leave something to be desired. However, he has a great release of the ball, and can shoot with either foot, and most important, he has excellent body control and scores a lot of goals by header. I think he will do fine in Europe, particularly in the Bundesliga where the ability to put the ball in the net is more essential than fancy dribbling skills. But I dont think he will live up to the billing as "Japan's best player". If you narrowed it down to "Japan's best striker, though, he would at least be a competitive choice.
He was lent to Boca Juniors to replace Martin Palermo when the latter was transfered to Spain a couple of years ago. I don't want to be harsh, but he sucked, big time. I think he started in just a handful of games and scored one goal or two. I don't recall more details, but I remember very well when Boca played the Intercontinental Cup in Tokio against Bayern Munich, the japanese press was furious because Boca's coach didn't even let him make the trip to Japan; he left him in Buenos Aires practicing with the youth divisions. I know this doesn't mean anything and he may as well be the best striker the Bundesliga has seen since Gerd Muller, but like Euros often say that the UEFA leagues are harder and better than Southamerica's, you better be the judge. Here you have a couple of links about him and his Boca tenure. http://www.asian-football.com/mrel/news_47041_E.html http://www.soccernet.com/global/news/2002/0208/20020208takahara.html
Matsu, in your opinion, who is Japan's best player (either in J-League or abroad)? I'd have to say it's either Nakamura, Nakata, or Ono. Agree?
Speaking of which, they got decimated by Juve! I really feel bad for him, trying to keep the team outta relegation.
I think Ono might be the most talented player at the moment, although there are several others who are extremely close. Personally I think that Ogasawara is the best all-around player in Japan, though he is only now beginning to mature and develop the vision on the field that Ono had from the very start. He may be a late bloomer but I think he may eventually become better than Ono. On the other hand, Okubo has all of the raw talent that any of those players have, and also a toughness and self-coinfidence that is superior to any other player Japan has ever produced. It will be another 2 or 3 years before he matures enough to know for sure, but I predict that by 2006, he will surpass them all. As for Nakamura, he has some good skills, and since he is getting more exposure than any of the others, people who dont know anything except the European leagues will rank him pretty high. But remember, he didnt even make the WC2002 squad, because he was only viewed as the 8th or 9th best midfielder available. Id say he is number 1 in a few areas, particularly taking free kicks, but he is not an all-around player like Ono or Ogasawara (Or either Nakata K. or H.) His talents in some areas are offset by his weaknesses in others.
You probably dont recall more details because you never saw him play. Im not really much of a Takahara fan,myself, but Id say it is a pretty big stretch to say "he sucked big time" when you never got a chance to see him play. The problem that Takahara had at Boca, as is mentioned even in the articles that you posted, is that he somehow developed a bad personal relationship with Bianchi and as a result he was never given a chance to appear in any matches. He only was allowed to play in seven matches, and four of those were only short appearances in the second half. Its pretty hard to judge a player's ability based on that little amount of playing time. Like I said, Im not a very big fan of Takahara, but you cant really criticise him based on his results at Boca. He was never given a chance to demonstrate whether he sucked, or whether he was any good.
I never saw him play because HE NEVER PLAYED. I follow the Argentine league in Fox Sports every week, they show at least 6 or 7 Boca games per tournament (out of 19) and I never saw him start, just as a substitute.
I've heard from his bad spell at Boca - and imho Takahara will just be a substitute if our goalgetter Bernardo Romeo ( whom you might probably know , played for San Lorenzo ...) is back from his long term injury. I also have some doubts in Takahara... On the other hand you mentioned Martin Palermo - everyone thought that he will make it big in Europe esp. because of his power - and he played like s**t at Villareal for almost 2 years now ( although he was injured often..). Perhaps Takahara will play much better for Hamburg than for Boca, at least i hope so.... What i've seen from Takahara so far in some test matches was quite nice, good ball handling skills and good vision, quite fast, but we have to wait until the restart of the season after the winter break if he is able to handle and get rid of nasty 6+ft 170-180 pds bundesliga-defenders .....
It'll be interesting to see how often Jara plays him if his starting strikers Barbarez and Romeo are both healthy. I don't think he's there for much more than cover. Personally, I don't expect too much from him, but am more than open to being pleasantly surprised.
I'm also convinced that marketing reasons where a big factor in the signing of Takahara.... SV Hamburgs wants to conquer the asian soccer market as one of the first Bundesliga teams.....
I've been hearing many people outside Asia have seen the Japanese players as the sources of money from a marketing view point. I don't ofcouse like that but have already accepted the fact that we have to live with it for years because the Japanese football is not widely known in South America and Europe. People tend to be skeptic and stereotype things that they have very little information about. I ofcouse don't like it but have been already convinced that Japanese fans have to live with such view, at least for the next 10 years or so. What really matters for Japanese is that our players get chances to prove in the big leagues on the planet, no matter what their real intentions of acquiring Japanese players are. Yet, one thing that I'd point out is that people tend to neglect the fact that we've already sent more than 10 players since established the pro league 10 years ago. Even though there are tons of things to work out, that's a quite acheivement Japan has made in such a short time. It also proves the truth that anyone from any country can succeed as long as they are talented and are trained good. Nationality doesn't guarantee our player to succeed in the big leagues but also doesn't necessarily deny his chance to succeed.
All I know is, Feyenoord wouldn't have won that UEFA Cup w/o Ono, and Parma wouldn't have won that Copa Italia if not for Nakata. Now I'm not saying they're the best on their teams, but each are instrumental. And sure Reggina is doing poorly, but w/o Nakamura, they would have no points in Serie A at all.