Award Winners

Here are the winners of the three Japan Footblog Player of the Year awards.

Shinji Kagawa is the winner of the Japanese Player in Europe award. While he was injured for the second half of last season, he has played well for so far this season and has combined well with the likes of Mario Gotze and Robert Lewandowski. Early in the season, he struggled and was criticized for some of his performances; however the poor early form was probably a result of the entire team playing badly. As Dortmund has climbed up the table over the past two months, Kagawa has been in good form, scoring and creating some excellent goals. While overall his club year was not significantly better than Nagatomo’s, who has recently been outstanding for Inter, Kagawa was at the heart of all things good for the national team. He was vital to the Asian Cup triumph, despite breaking his foot and missing the final. His heroic two goal performance against Qatar was especially memorable. He was also wonderful in the 3-0 win over Korea over the summer and World Cup qualifiers so far.

Note: A reader pointed out to me that Eiji Kawashima had a very good season for his club Lierse, saving them from relegation, and should have been nominated for the award. I agree and have now officially nominated him! Sorry for my initial oversight.

Marcus Tulio Tanaka is the J. League Japanese Player of the Year. While his team Nagoya Grampus did not win the league, they probably should have. They played the best football, and he was the heart of the league’s second-best defense. He was not booked the entire season and also scored six goals. Nagoya will be the team to watch in this year’s Champions League.

Ryo Miyaichi is the Young Player of the year. While Japanese football overall enjoyed a great year, none of the senior players had a particularly incredible year for their club. This was not the case for the young players, with three or four having great years. However Ryo just shades it for me, ahead of Usami and Ibusuki. While he hasn’t played as regularly at Arsenal as we all hoped, he was incredible for Feyenoord in the first half of the year. I don’t want to understate how good Ryo was with Feyenoord–he was amazing. While he was in the Eredivisie, he was arguably the league’s best player and steered Feyenoord from relegation to respectable. All at the age of 18, freshly plucked out of high school. For his time at Feyenoord alone, he wins the award. At Arsenal, he’s played mostly for the reserves and in Carling Cup matches. He spent some time out with injury. Fingers crossed, this year he will emerge as a really special player.