Word: inamoto
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Dates: during 2001-2001
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...something in common. Yet recently, supporters of Japanese J-League sides Urawa Red Diamonds, Cerezo Osaka and Gamba Osaka have indeed found themselves on common ground, over an uncommon event - losing a player to the high-profile, highly competitive European leagues. Last Monday, Gamba Osaka's star midfielder Junichi Inamoto, 21, joined English Premier League giants Arsenal in a deal worth a reported $5.5 million. The week before, Bolton Wanderers, another Premier League side, took Cerezo Osaka's Akinori Nishizawa, 25, on a 10-month loan. Across the North Sea, Urawa Reds' midfielder Shinji Ono, 21, signed a reported...
...This Monday, Gamba Osaka's star midfielder Junichi Inamoto, 21, will join English Premier League giants Arsenal in a five-year deal worth a reported $3 million. Last week, Bolton Wanderers, another Premier League side, took Cerezo Osaka's Akinori Nishizawa, 25, on a 10-month loan. Across the North Sea, Urawa Reds midfielder Shinji Ono, 21, signed a reported $4 million deal with first division Dutch side Feyenoord. In Italy, A.C. Parma paid league champions A.S. Roma a cool $26 million for the services of superstar Hidetoshi Nakata; the 24-year-old playmaker, now firmly established in Italian football...
...managing editor of Tokyo's weekly Soccer Magazine. Arsenal's French manager Arsene Wenger, who coached J-League side Nagoya Grampus Eight from 1995-96, agrees. "It's time for a Japanese player to do well in the Premier League," he told the daily Yomiuri. He's betting Inamoto?who has "good technique and good vision"?will be that player...
...spend long periods on the substitutes' bench, however, exposure to the more competitive European leagues will help them grow as players. That can only be to Japan's advantage as the country prepares for its next major soccer challenge, co-hosting the 2002 World Cup. "Nobody knows if Ono, Inamoto and Nishizawa will be able to play regularly in Europe," says Tokyo football writer Yoshiyuki Osumi. "But their experience of playing high-level soccer will certainly lift their performance and the Japan team." If the players help some European clubs sell more Tshirts along...
...squad could yield a club rich revenues in TV broadcast deals and kit sales in Japan. Why else would Bolton sign Nishizawa, goes the argument, after the player had just returned to Japan from an unremarkable spell at Spanish side R.C.D. EspaNyol? And how much playing time will Inamoto get in an Arsenal midfield that already boasts players like Robert Pires and?for now, anyway?Patrick Vieira? When English side West Ham United embarked on an unsuccessful attempt to sign Gamba Osaka's Tsuneyasu Miyamoto earlier this year, then-manager Harry Redknapp quipped: "I think we've already sold...