BioTakyua Takagi was arguably the top striker of his generation, and his 27 goals in 45 matches for the national team probably give a more representative picture of his talent than his J.League statistics. Takagi was unfortunate in that the J.League did not exist when he graduated from Kunimi High School, the renowned football powerhouse of western Japan. He entered the JSL as a player for first Fujita and then Mazda, at a time when players had to hold down a regular job at the sponsoring company during the day, as part of their football "career". When the J.League was inaugurated in 1995, Takagi was 25 and at the peak of his career. He was one of the most prodigious Japanese scorers in his first two seasons, when the majority of starting positions at striker in the J.League were filled by foreign players. After missing half of the 1995 season with a severe injury to his achilles tendon that continued to bother him for the rest of his career, Takagi came back to score in double digits for the next two seasons, but he was already on the downward slope. A move to Verdy Kawasaki in 1998 reunited him with national team strike partner Kazu Miura, but both players were out of shape and losing their scoring touch, and the result was a near disaster. Takagi moved to Sapporo in 2000 for one last attempt to revive past glories, but bowed out halfway through the season when it became clear that his body was no longer up to the task. Though his finest years as a player were probably the 1991 and 92 seasons ,when Japan's preparations to launch the J.League were in full swing, he nevertheless was an important contributor in the league's early years. |
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