Honda was nothing special as an overall player either, though not sure if he was better than Nakamura who i didn't see play nearly as often. Honda was a slow plodder that liked his time on the ball and not very press resistant, but with very good shooting technique, some good close control and a good passer if given space.
Watched him week in week out at cska during his peak who he was good for, but not often in the bigger league or euro games and wasn't surprised when he flopped at Milan as he didn't have the speed of thought or press resistance on the ball to make up for the slowness, though tbf i believe he had some sort of long-term illness by that stage that affected his athleticism even more?. Anyway, he was a good luxury attacking player that could make a nice highlight reel of goals, but not one of the better midfielders i've seen in RPL. For foreign midfielders at that time, Danny was a lot more effective.
Japan for a long time seem to have had some good technically proficient passers in midfield...i remember Ono at Feyenoord being skillful but had a lot of injuries, Nakata, Nakamura, Honda, or Endo who never left J-league. Kagawa was the best though, his Dortmund peak was higher than anything the others reached, though i don't know if more informed Japanese fans would consider him the most talented. They never seem to have any even serviceable forwards though, with a good finisher i think they would have had a good chance of scraping past Belgium at the WC.
Knew someone would make that comment
(sobbing)