Hidetoshi Nakata

Japanese footballer (born 1977)

Hidetoshi Nakata, OSSI (中田 英寿, Nakata Hidetoshi; born 22 January 1977) is a Japanese former professional footballer who played as a midfielder. Considered as one of the greatest Asian football players of all time and coming from an Asian Football Confederation (AFC) country in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Nakata became the first ever AFC player to be nominated for the Ballon d'Or. Nakata began his professional career in 1995 and won the Asian Football Confederation Player of the Year award in 1997 and 1998, the Scudetto with Roma in 2001, played for Japan in three World Cup tournaments (1998, 2002 and 2006) and competed in the Olympics twice (1996 and 2000).

From Wikipedia, under CC BY-SA. More on occurri.