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Search: 'Yoshikatsu Kawaguchi'

Stories

Beyond our yen

Justin McCurry on Japan’s continuing love affair with English football, despite the Premier League shifting its focus to other Asian markets

When Harry Redknapp brought Yoshikatsu Kawaguchi to Portsmouth for £1.8 million in 2001, detractors spied a case of commercial considerations taking precedence over footballing ability. Sure enough, the Japanese goalkeeper departed under a cloud less than two years later after a series of hapless performances that saw him lose his place to the 42-year-old Dave Beasant.

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Keep in reserve

Portsmouth’s erratic Japanese keeper can’t get near the first team but, reports Justin McCurry, he’s happy plying his trade on English training grounds

Just before last year’s World Cup, a football writer in Japan drew attention to a phobia Yoshikatsu Kawa­guchi shares with Transylvania’s most feared resident. Aside from being a poor joke, it turned out to be a pre­scient commentary on the fortunes of Japan’s erst­while No 1. Less than two years after his £1.7 million move to Portsmouth, Kawaguchi’s fear of crosses has come to symbolise a promising career that is in danger of slipping from his grasp.

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Reserve space

Japanese journalists have made more of a mark here than their players. In the first of two articles on Asia, Justin McCurry explains what they are writing about

Japanese footballers, or so the punditry zeitgeist goes, are a talentless bunch, courted by the likes of Bolton and Portsmouth only to generate income – buy one, and get planeloads of spendthrift groupies free. In Japan, most of the salivating is being done not in boardrooms, but in tabloid newsrooms, where the ad­ventures of Yoshikatsu Kawaguchi, Junichi Inamoto et al generate acres of copy – some of it funny, much of it banal, but all of it gratefully received by the football-loving public.

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January 2002

Tuesday 1 Plenty of encouragement for Man Utd as would-be contenders Liverpool draw 1-1 (“You always feel with Bolton you need the extra goal,” says Phil Thompson) and Chelsea collapse 4-2 at home to Southampton. “It is very strange,” says Claudio Ranieri, rubbing his chin as though he had discovered a new phenomenon. Leeds stay top after disposing of West Ham 3-0. Newly buoyant Ipswich spring a leak, losing 3-2 at Charlton after Marcus Bent scores twice in the first five minutes. “You always remain optimistic,” says Walter Smith unconvincingly after Everton’s fifth defeat in a row, 1-0 at Middles­brough. Nicky Law leaves Chester­field to take over at Bradford City.

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Pointless exercises

World Cup hosts of the immediate past and future lost all their games in France. Rich Zahradnik & Sam Wallace sift the debris

USA I sat in my living room on July 4th safe from Paris and the Germans, safe from Nantes and the Yugoslavs, and, praise to the heavens, safe from Lyon and the Iranians. I watched the day’s two quarter-final matches as any American fan should expect to watch them, a neutral connoisseur enjoying some of the best in the game (Argentina, Holland, Croatia) along with some of the luckiest (Germany).

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