Shunsuke Nakamura, free kick expert
February 3rd, 2007
The other day I was watching a Japanese bangumi where they feature famous athletes attempting to perform tasks given them according to their specialties. One of the guests was Shunsuke Nakamura (中村俊輔), the Celtic midfielder. He was tasked to shoot 10 soccer balls over a wall into two rings (one on each upper corner of the goal) barely the size of a basketball ring. (The other guest was a famous sprinter who ran the 50-meter dash against an Enzo Ferrari driven by a professional race car driver. Guess who won? Hint: it’s red and worth $1,000,000.) But Shunsuke Nakamura was impressive, bending no less than 4 soccer balls over the wall and into the rings.
Perhaps Nakamura’s most famous goal on the field was the spectacular 30-yard free kick against Manchester United (video above) in the 2006 Champions’ League which eventually eliminated Manchester United. With that wonderful goal, he became the only Japanese to score in the Champions’ League. He is also sometimes called the “Beckham of Asia” and although he doesn’t have Beckham’s looks, he can probably bend it better than the former galactico. The J-League coach Steve Perryman once said Nakamura was so good he “could open a tin of beans with his left foot”. Click here for a collection of Nakamura’s free kicks at YouTube.
April 18th, 2007 at 11:59 pm
Manchester United were not eliminated from the tournament, they simply lost the game 1-0 to Celtic. Manchester United are currently still in the champions league, which is now at the semi-finals stage (correct as at 18/04/07). Incidentally, I was at Celtic Park to witness Naka’s freekick… it was a stormer!!
Also, ‘Enzo Ferrari’ was the son of the super-car maker, whilst the Ferrari Enzo is the name of the car… tisk tisk blogger!!
April 19th, 2007 at 8:42 pm
Thanks for dropping by!
As I’ve written above, Manchester United were “eventually eliminated” from the tournament, but not by this loss. I apologize for the poor phrasing.
“Enzo Ferrari” was the name of the founder of the famous Italian car company. However, it is also the name of the Ferrari supercar. According to Wikipedia:
The car is named after the company’s founder, “Enzo Ferrari”.[1][2]”
By the way, United thrashing of Roma the other day was simply unbelievable. Too bad Arsenal’s gone.
January 17th, 2008 at 6:13 am
Apologies blogger. I got all mixed up. Dino was the son of Enzo, and he named one of his earlier models after the lad… hence the Ferrari Dino.
My neighbour had a Dino, but I lived in a shit area, so I think it must have been a replica kit-car. Mind you, he was a dodgy guy, so it might have been a real Dino and everyone else was too scraed to touch it.
Guess I’ll never know now??