Shinji Okazaki, 38, a former Japan national soccer team forward, announced at his retirement press conference that a knee injury ended his playing career. He also revealed his ambition to coach the Japan national team and win a World Cup in the future.
“The knee injury is the biggest reason for my retirement,” Okazaki said at a retirement press conference in Tokyo, Japan, on Sunday, according to Japanese media outlet Sponichi. “It was the first time in my soccer career that I felt like quitting after suffering an injury that left me unable to play since last December,” Okazaki said. Okazaki finished his career last month at Sint-Truiden in Belgium.
“I’m full of regrets. There are a lot of things I didn’t achieve that I said I wanted to achieve,” he said. He had set himself a number of goals, including winning a World Cup, scoring double-digit Premier League goals, playing for a big club, and staying active until he was 40. He retired from the Japan national team with 50 goals, third all-time, but he is “not satisfied” with that achievement, saying, “I could have scored more memorable and important goals, but I don’t think I scored any historic goals 텍사스홀덤 during my national team career.”
“I talked a lot with Shinji Kagawa, who was in the same situation as me, and we helped each other out,” he said, adding, “We stimulated each other, which made me try harder in the last four or five years.”
Okazaki made his professional debut with Japan’s Shimizu S-Pulse in 2005 and made his way to Europe in 2011 with German Bundesliga side Stuttgart. He then joined Leicester City from Mainz, where he played a key role in the Foxes’ fairytale 2015-16 English Premier League (EPL) title run, culminating in the pinnacle of his career.
After spending the 2014-2015 season at the bottom of the league and avoiding relegation by finishing 14th, Leicester City burst onto the scene the following season, beating many of the “big clubs” to dramatically lift the trophy after 132 years in existence. Often playing up top alongside Leicester City stalwart Jamie Vardy, Okazaki scored six goals and provided two assists in 39 official appearances that title-winning season.
After parting ways with Leicester City at the end of the 2018-2019 season when his contract expired, Okazaki played for Huesca and Cartagena (both in Spain) before joining Belgian side Sint-Truidijn in 2022.
He has also been a star striker for the Japanese national team, appearing in three World Cups, from South Africa 2010 to Russia 2018. In 119 appearances for Japan, he scored 50 goals, third on the country’s all-time list.
Okazaki will start as an ambassador for Sint-Truidijn, where he last played, on July 1. He will also make his coaching debut with Japanese-owned FC Basara Weinz in the German sixth division.
He has big plans as a coach. He said he wanted to “challenge the big walls” by training in England, and he also revealed his dream of managing the Japanese national team. When asked, “Do you want to coach the Japanese national team?”, Okazaki replied, “That’s still my goal. I haven’t won a World Cup as a player, so my main goal is to try it as a coach,” he said. “I’ve experienced strong competition in Europe, so if Japan wants to aim for the world, we need help from the environment, staff, media, etc.” he added.