Holy crap I totally forgot about that account. Where has the years gone ffs
What happened to Shinji Kagawa?
- Thread starter duffer
- Start date
There used to be a fanboy of him here I forgot the posters nickname but he had Kagawa body pillow in his bedroom.
i think their national team played somewhat similar to dortmund. him and honda were the AMs, the whole team played quick passes with lots of movement. not what he got at united both in 2012 or 13.
Mad winger?
Ohhhhhhh yes.
100% this.
Wasn't Klopp one of four or five managers we spoke to (Guardiola another) when Fergie was retiring? They all had other plans and we ended up with Moyes.
Then when we spoke to him after Moyes it was Ed's "Disneyland" pitch.
I think SAF as always was trying to keep up with the European clubs of having a creative 10 in the team, I remember before that we never played with one. Either Rooney would drop deep and play as a false 9 or when Giggs played in midfield he's play a little higher but I don't remember us playing him in front of two CMs.
I'm guessing SAF realized that a 4231 is the way forward and bought a young #10 to be that player, I'm also certain Rooney would've been moved on and SAF had his eyes on Lewa.
I'm guessing SAF realized that a 4231 is the way forward and bought a young #10 to be that player, I'm also certain Rooney would've been moved on and SAF had his eyes on Lewa.
He was never a top player. We were sold a pup. A less good version of Mkhitaryan.
Prime example of Klopp can get high levels of performance from average players.
Never seen anything in Kagawa to suggest he had anything near the ability to break into our first team. Some will say he wasn't given a chance or he didn't play in his best position, fact is his career nosedived once he left United. He was overrated.
Never seen anything in Kagawa to suggest he had anything near the ability to break into our first team. Some will say he wasn't given a chance or he didn't play in his best position, fact is his career nosedived once he left United. He was overrated.
Always thought Honda was the better player but his career never really went where it should have either.
I was so excited about him. Took time to settle but after he got that hat-trick I thought he'd be incredible.
Didn't work out. Shows how it can be deceiving.
Didn't work out. Shows how it can be deceiving.
His career took an absurd turn after leaving AC Milan 4 years ago. He's played for 6 different clubs since then! Today he plays fotball in Azerbaijan, while simultaneously managing the Cambodian international team. And he only just turned 35
EDIT:
Looking at the countries he's played football in, it seems like his goal is to see as much of the world as possible: Japan, Russia, Netherlands, Italy, Mexico, Australia, Netherlands again, Brazil, Portugal and Azerbaijan. That's 9 different countries in all continents apart from Africa(surely his next move?
).It's easy to say the Klopp effect, but he actually played well for Japan as well, without Klopp, I think he certainly benefitted from being in that Dortmund team at the time that he was, however it's also true that he didn't benefit from the fact we mostly played him as a United winger, when he was never a winger to begin with. Shame his career basically went into a soft decline after he left us as I was always rooting for him to do well, one of those players that wanted to play for United because it was United, not for money or anything like that.
You'll probably laugh but as a Dortmund fan since 1991 he's my favourite player of all time. I really loved him when he was at BVB and the announcement of his return was like birthday, easter and christmas on the same day. Had a phenomenal first game in 2014 and had to be substituted because of cramps...he obviously wasn't really fit. Too bad he came inthe catastrophic 14/15 season. Klopp's successors unfortunately didn't rate him that highly.
Kagawa's playing style was phenomenal today. Always calm, nice moves, not a bit selfish and...he's Japanese.
Kagawa's playing style was phenomenal today. Always calm, nice moves, not a bit selfish and...he's Japanese.
I always thought that in 13/14 he would have had a much bigger role in the side after Fergie sold Rooney in the summer (clearly was his intention) but then he retired and Moyes hadnt a clue what to do with anyone.
Pep, Carlo, Klopp, Mourinho and van Gaal. Pep was definitely first choice iirc he was offered the job before Fergie had even informed the Glazers he was retiring then I believe Carlo was offered it but he had already accepted the Madrid job. Klopp made it clear he wasn't interested in leaving Dortmund yet, the likes of Sir Bobby had concerns over Mourinho and van Gaal was leading Netherlands to the World Cup so it basically came down to Moyes. An experienced PL manager, good friends with Fergie and a manager the Glazers hoped would turn into the next SAF.
On the topic of Kagawa, Moyes was a disaster for him. He had no clue how to use him he clearly preferred Rooney and Welbeck over him and our more natural wingers then Mata arrived which knocked him further down the pecking order.
Cats ate his face
What an absolutely tragic set of events this is. Ending up with our 6th choice
I sometimes wonder what 'could have been' if a competent manager took over after Fergie. I reckon we'd have signed a better midfielder than Fellaini(who to be fair wasn't that bad for us). I also reckon Shinji would have gotten more playtime, though I'm not so sure if he would have turned out to be a top player. But at least we would have gotten top 4 and realised that we need a defender and probably a new striker(because of RVP's injury problems) ASAP.
Hindsight and all that, but Moyes, followed by Van Gaal(who truly fecked up the rebuild), may really have been the two worst possible decisions the club could have done.
I agree. I've always said the 13/14 squad wasn't as bad as some make it out to be it just needed investment which we failed at because of Woodward and Moyes' dithering over signings. For example, Fergie worked on the Thiago signing and basically had it lined up for the next manager, Moyes wasn't a fan and preferred Fabregas which was an unrealistic target but we still chased him for ages before realising we weren't going to get him. That summer was a fecking mess. We should've finished top four still but obviously Moyes was incompetent.What an absolutely tragic set of events this is. Ending up with our 6th choice
I sometimes wonder what 'could have been' if a competent manager took over after Fergie. I reckon we'd have signed a better midfielder than Fellaini(who to be fair wasn't that bad for us). I also reckon Shinji would have gotten more playtime, though I'm not so sure if he would have turned out to be a top player. But at least we would have gotten top 4 and realised that we need a defender and probably a new striker(because of RVP's injury problems) ASAP.
Hindsight and all that, but Moyes, followed by Van Gaal(who truly fecked up the rebuild), may really have been the two worst possible decisions the club could have done.
I agree. It was the champions, for feck's sake!
It's seriously disrespectful to the players to look at that team and say that Moyes had a tough job. No, he hadn't! Top 4, followed by a handful of sensible transfers, would have been more than good enough for another season in charge!
I remain convinced that Fergie had all but lined up deals for Thiago, Herrera and Shaw, but Moyes spent the summer chasing Fabregas, Fellaini and Baines.What an absolutely tragic set of events this is. Ending up with our 6th choice
I sometimes wonder what 'could have been' if a competent manager took over after Fergie. I reckon we'd have signed a better midfielder than Fellaini(who to be fair wasn't that bad for us). I also reckon Shinji would have gotten more playtime, though I'm not so sure if he would have turned out to be a top player. But at least we would have gotten top 4 and realised that we need a defender and probably a new striker(because of RVP's injury problems) ASAP.
Hindsight and all that, but Moyes, followed by Van Gaal(who truly fecked up the rebuild), may really have been the two worst possible decisions the club could have done.
I'm also certain that we were meant to cash in on Rooney, but Moyes opted to give him a new contract.
There's even been plenty of talk of Ronaldo agreeing a return until Fergie announced his retirement.
What could have been indeed.
My memory is hazy but I’m sure Moyes admitted he had no idea what type of player Shinji is and said “he plays on the left for Japan so he can do that here too”. Not taking into account that Japan play a completely different style to United and played a no striker formation for a bit
Yeah, Honda looked the business at one point.
Off topic, but how good was Endo in his prime? He looked bloody impressive at times for Japan.
ETA Still plays, apparently! Past 40 these days.
Endo was class! The Japanese Pirlo. Damn shame he never went to Europe.
Yeah, true I guess.
He was a misfit for United, especially under Moyes - which has to count as a mitigating factor - but he ultimately wasn't that good in terms of individual quality.
I always felt Kagawas issue was we signed rvp and saf was always going to play Rooney and Robin. Kagawa was never a wide player as Moyes found out.
Would have been very interesting to see him play in Europe, no doubt.
He's a fair bit older than the likes of Honda, though - perhaps he was just too old at the point when he really started to make people pay attention?
Yep, that is probably why. Before 2010, very few Japanese went to Europe. After Honda, Kagawa and Nagatomo there was a boom of Japanese players trying their luck in Europe which still is ongoing so I guess it's permanent now.
I think it's just another case of a good player, who blossomed in the right circumstances and ended up losing his confidence later on.
He was never top class. Just a good cog in a well oiled machine at Klopp's Dortmund. As soon as he was taken out of that system he looked ordinary, and I thought at the time we were signing the wrong Dortmund player (I wanted Gotze, but he looked ordinary after leaving Dortmund too so bullet dodged I guess). Plus as others have said his peak didn't last long and he seems to have declined early due to lifestyle problems.
Agree it's too bad we never got to see Endo in Europe. I'd argue that while Honda + Nagatomo + Kagawa were the start of this current boom of Japanese players trying to make it in European leagues, the OG that blew that door down was Nakamura. I don't have any affinity for Celtic, but I have a long sleeve Celtic jersey because of him.
I remember the summer we got him and I think I'm right in saying United had a double bid rejected for Kags and Lewa ?
My thinking was, why the hell are we going after this Lewandowski guy when we have Rooney.
My thinking was, why the hell are we going after this Lewandowski guy when we have Rooney.
Ding ding. Collect your Kenwood Juicer at the door.
I think Fergie rated Endo as well
Surely it was Nakata? Won the scudetto with Roma and had a good career in Italy.
Nakata was amazing and you're right, I probably erred in calling Nakamura the OG when Nakata came before him. I'd argue that Nakamura did more opening of doors because of when he played and the exposure he got (those were good years for Celtic and I remember games in the CL against Barca, etc.). Both have a legitimate claim to the title of best Japanese footballer yet.
Nakamura is a Celtic legend who definitely put Japanese players on the map(as did Nakata before him), but I wouldn't credit him with the Japanese player boom, as he was doing great stuff in Scotland(and in the CL) for many years without it having any profound effect.
After Kagawa's first season in Dortmund and Honda establishing himself as possibly the best player in the Russian league there was suddenly a lot of transfers between the J-League and Europe during the summer. I don't remember the exact year(sometime between 2011 and 2013), but at one point 50% of Bundesliga teams had at least one Japanese player in their first team
Japan's national team went from having a handful of players in Europe to practically the entire starting XI(minus Endo) playing in Europe, as well as some of the bench options.Which makes sense, seeing as Kagawa cost 300k or something absurd like that. J-League players were dirt cheap, so the risk was very low. I'm not sure if they are so cheap nowadays, though. Celtic just signed Furuhashi for 4.5 million, which is pretty expensive for a 26 year old who's never played outside the J-League.
I thought he was still good individually for the first couple of seasons after he went back to Dortmund(even though the 2014-15 season was terrible for the team overall) though i was only watching a game or two every month and not week in week out, but then he started to become injury prone, declined quickly and lost favour by the time Bosz was manager. Saw him a few times for Japan since and he's physically finished for good level football.
Don't think there is much mystery to his decline, just another example of a player that keeps it together physically for about ten years then drops off quite quickly.
Don't think there is much mystery to his decline, just another example of a player that keeps it together physically for about ten years then drops off quite quickly.
Not being funny but I watched Japan vs Syria (2017) while I was in Japan on holiday. They sucked big time. They drew 1-1 but we’re losing to a Country controlled by terrorists. I love Japan but they haven’t come close to producing another Nakamura.