Is he any good? I remember watching him play years ago for the Japanese youth national team but I haven't seen or heard much of him since. And now he's got this transfer to VVV.
That's too bad. I signed him in Football Manager 2010 (with the J-League patch) for my club and he was a goal machine.
It's funny you say that, because I was reading a thread on an FM forum that was listing players that are great in previous versions of FM and CM but ended up sucking IRL. One of them was Matthew Spiranovic. They also list Chilavert though who got 74 caps for Paraguay, so they have a strange definition of a failed player. edit: found the thread. incidentally whose J-League patch did you use? I always wonder who actually code those things and whether they actually know anything about the J League.
Sad to hear he's not living up to expectations. He was a player I'd have liked to have seen succeed after reading that hes 1/2 Irish.
He got signed by VVV after another trial under the new coach. 2.5 years-contract. http://soccer.yahoo.co.jp/jleague/news/article.html?a=20110115-00000044-jij-spo
I heard that Rakuyama is in the Russian first division after Sanfrecce released him at the end of 2009. Honda is the only reasonable explanation I can put forward for that too, other than the fact that maybe the Russian first division is a couple of grades below J2 talent-wise.