Hidetoshi Nakata

Hidetoshi Nakata, OSSI (中田 英寿) is a Japanese former professional footballer who played as a midfielder.

At the final against Al-Talaba, he scored a winning goal in the 81st minute.

Considered one of the best talents to come from an Asian Football Confederation (AFC) country in the early late 1990s and early 2000s, Nakata became the first ever AFC player to be nominated for the Ballon d'Or; he also hold the record for most goals scored by an AFC player in the Serie A.

He is widely considered to be one of the best Asian players of all time.

After having represented U-17 Japan at the 1993 U-17 World Championship (where he scored a goal) and U-20 Japan at the 1995 U-20 World Championship (where he scored twice), Nakata was part of the U-23 Japan squads at the 1996 Olympics, where Japan upset Brazil, and at the 2000 Olympics.

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 Roma in 2001, played for Japan in three World Cup tournaments (1998, 2002 and 2006) and competed in the Olympics twice (1996 and 2000).

Nakata began his professional career at age 18 in 1995, with J1 League side Bellmare Hiratsuka (now Shonan Bellmare).

He played many matches as offensive midfielder from first season and the club won the champions in 1995 Asian Cup Winners' Cup first Asian title in club history.

From 1996, he became a regular player and he was selected J.League Best XI in 1997.

His senior national team debut came in May 1997 against South Korea.

After the 1998 World Cup in France, Nakata was signed by Perugia in Italy's Serie A for 4 million U.S. dollars, becoming the second Japanese player ever to appear in the Italian top league after Kazuyoshi Miura had done it for Genoa four years earlier.

In his first season in Italy, Nakata scored 10 goals, his single-season highest total.

He was a key member of the Japanese side that qualified for the 1998 World Cup, scoring five goals in qualification matches and setting up all three Japanese goals in the qualification play-off against Iran.

In January 2000, after one and a half seasons at Perugia, Nakata moved to Roma for 42 billion lire, helping the team win the scudetto.

Despite Nakata playing every match in Japan's first three World Cup appearances, he was not selected for the country's Asian Cup-winning squads in 2000 and 2004.

In total, he was capped 77 times for Japan, scoring 11 goals, 9 of which came in official FIFA competitions.

A quick, creative, and hard-working offensive or central 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.

The highlight of Nakata's career at Roma came on 6 May 2001 in the Serie A match against Juventus at Stadio Delle Alpi.

After replacing Francesco Totti in the second half with Roma trailing 0–2, Nakata netted with a 30-yard goal beyond Juventus goalkeeper Edwin 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 of Vincenzo 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 top of the league table.

In the summer of 2001, Nakata penned a four-year deal with Parma for a transfer fee of 55 billion lire, a world record payment for an Asian player which would not be broken for 14 years.

He made his club debut on 8 August 2001 in their 0–2 defeat at Stadio Ennio Tardini against Lille in the first leg of the third round of the Champions League.

More than one month later, on 23 September, Nakata scored his first goal for Parma in Serie A at home over Brescia, which also proved to be the winning goal of the match.

He helped Japan reach the final of the 2001 Confederations Cup but left the national team before the final to join Roma for their final league matches.

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 the 2002 Coppa Italia final against Juventus, which Parma eventually won.

Nakata played in all four of Japan's matches at the 2002 World Cup, co-hosted by South Korea and Japan, scoring the second goal of a 2–0 first round win against Tunisia.

In March 2004, Pelé named Nakata in his FIFA 100, a list of the top living footballers at the time.

Nakata was one of only two Asian footballers on the list.

In January 2004, Nakata played for Bologna where he played the remainder of the 2003–04 season before moving to Fiorentina, where he played the following season.

In 2005, he was made the Knight of the Order of the Star of Italian Solidarity, one of Italy's highest honors, for improving the country's image overseas.

Nakata has also been involved in fashion, regularly attending runway shows and wearing designer clothing.

In August 2005, Nakata moved to Premiership side Bolton 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 over West Bromwich Albion.

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

At the 2006 World Cup, Nakata played in all three matches for Japan, losing to Australia and Brazil, and drawing with Croatia.

His performance against Croatia earned him a Man of the Match award.

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."

In a 2014 interview in TMW 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.