March of the Japanese

Finally the Japanese footballers have started to break through to the top teams in European football. Of course the shining star at the moment is Shinji Kagawa who was, at least as far as I'm concerned, the best player in the Bunedsliga last year. Japanese players have tried to make it in Europe before without a greater success. The most successful player might be Hidetoshi Nakata, who played mostly in Italy, but never made the big headlines. Now its Kagawas time to show the world some Japanese football.

Kagawa's shoes are not easy to fill. I think that Götze has the potential to do that as he showed the season before. No one else in the team doesn't even come close. The hole that Kagawa left is even bigger if we talk about the Japanese players. There are in fact ten Japanese in the Bundesliga this year. Hasebe who plays for Wolfsburg is often seen on the field and Schalkes Utchida has been an important player for the Gelsenkircheners for the past season or two. Both of them are good examples of Japanese hard working players.

Last season Stuttgart made a great deal when they bought a German-Japanese player. Gotoku Sakais performance in the14 games he played for Stuttgart was outstanding. He hardly lost any one-on-one situations and was  very good to both directions from his back post. He made five assists and
scored an average of 3,43 in the kicker marks last season. I was really impressed with his attitude and the pace he goes into battling situations. I think Gotoku Sakai is the man to keep a closer eye on for the 2012-2013 season.

Another interesting player is MönchengladbachsYuki Otsu, who played in three matches last season. He is a promising attacker who scored two beautiful goals in the Olympics for Japan. Especially now when Marco Reus is not there anymore to score goals young players have to step up. Otsu might be one of those, although he hasn't been playing too much in the pre-season games. All in all ten Japanese players is a big bunch that will keep some Japanese focus in the Bundesliga as well.