Going . . . Going . . . Gon! Masahi Nakayama Retires.

Masashi Nakayama, Jubilo Iwata and Japan legend – with a few appearances for Consadole Sapporo thrown in for good measure – announced his retirement this week, at the age of 45, his body, in his own words – in a nutshell – not responding any longer! The player managed a couple of minutes as a substitute in Consadole’s final match as his swansong, but held back the announcement until Tuesday. I find that interesting, since the J.League Awards on Monday night feted ex-Jubilo players Makoto Tanaka and Toshiya Fujita on their retirement. Did Nakayama not want to take their moment, or did he want his own later in the week!?

Nakayama – affectionately known as “Gon” is the J.League’s all-time leading scorer, with 157 goals, and also holds a few other records in the Japanese – and world – game. He was Japan’s first-ever scorer in World Cup Finals, with
his 74th minute strike in the 2-1 defeat to Jamaica at France 1998. Incidentally, he then broke a bone in his leg later in the match, but the full extent of his injury was not known until he completed the game!

“Gon” notched 21 goals in 53 internationals for Japan between 1990 and 2003, and 235 goals for Jubilo Iwata (also including four seasons pre-Jubilo Iwata as Yamaha Motors) in almost 500 appearances. In 1998 he was J1’s top scorer with 40 goals, which included a streak of hat tricks (in fact four and five goal hauls) in four successive games, and he holds the record for the fastest ever international hat trick – scoring three goals in 183 seconds against Brunei in 2000!

He was a popular character with fans and fellow players alike and was always good for a quote after a game, win or lose, and often talked to the fans via megaphone after a win. There should be more like him – bringing fun to the game, while enjoying life.

For me, the biggest memory of “Gon” that I will ever hold is watching live TV in Kobe, Japan, in the dark hours of the night of October 28th, 1993, and the enduring image of the player collapsing to the ground as he realised that Japan were not going to the World Cup, USA 1994. The game I was watching – Japan against Iraq, in Doha, went into injury time with Japan leading 2-1 and heading to USA. The rest is history. It became known as the Doha Tragedy (ドーハの悲劇 Dōha no higeki), as Japan gave away the ball in the middle of the pitch, Iraq advanced, gained a corner and scored from it! The draw sent both teams out and South Korea went to USA 1994. Incidentally, Korea also has a name for this event – the Miracle of Doha (도하의 기적/도하의 奇跡 or Doha ui Gijeok to give it its Korean name) . . . Going . . . Going . . . Gon!