Why Hidetoshi Nakata, face of the 2002 World Cup, retired at 29: ‘I’m not a fan of football’

“I never had a dream to become a professional footballer, but somehow it happened and I played in World Cups and I went to Italy and England. I played all the time for passion. I’m not a fan of football, I like to play football. That’s the reason I left, I had lost the passion. If I didn’t have the passion, it was like I was lying to myself.”

Hidetoshi Nakata, one of football’s trailblazers, retired from playing when he was just 29. His last game was for Japan at the 2006 World Cup in Germany, a 4-1 defeat against Brazil in their final group game.

He had decided he was going to retire six months earlier but only told a close inner circle. When the final whistle came, he dabbed his tears with a swapped Brazil shirt in the middle of the Dortmund pitch.

Nakata’s footballing journey was at an end but there have never been any regrets, doubts, or desire to turn back the clock.

Following that Brazil loss, he dropped out of football altogether. “What I love is to play, not to coach, or to comment,” he says. “That’s the reason I said after retirement, ‘No, I need to find another passion’.”

Here, he tells The Athletic about his complicated relationship with the sport that turned him into a global icon.

It all started in Japan, where the league only became professional in 1993 and whose national team had never participated in a World Cup.

“At that time, no one dreamed about becoming a professional footballer,” Nakata says. “The No 1 sport in Japan was baseball. But in the end, I loved the manga cartoon Captain Tsubasa (about a young boy who became a famous footballer), so then I decided to play football.”

Nakata, now 48, grew up in the Yamanashi Prefecture, near the famous Mount Fuji, two hours from Tokyo. He began his professional career at J-League side Bellmare Hiratsuka, where he played for four years, helping them win their only major continental title, the 1995 Asian Cup Winners’ Cup.

A gifted playmaker, he appeared for his country at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta but it was his performances at the 1998 France World Cup — Japan’s first appearance in international football’s biggest tournament — and his shock of dyed hair that caught the eye in Europe.

Hidetoshi Nakata at the 1998 World Cup (Stu Forster/Allsport/Getty Images)

“I was changing my hair colour every single day (even before the World Cup) but it was important to be known in the world because I wanted to play overseas,” he says. “So I was hoping to get spotted.”

Immediately after the World Cup, Nakata was signed by Italian side Perugia, promoted to Serie A, for $4million (£3.1m at today’s exchange rates). He had an outstanding first season, scoring 10 goals from midfield, including two on his debut — but off the field, swapping Japan for Italy was a culture shock.

“If you come to Japan, you can see how different it is from Italy. Japanese people are on time, everything’s like…” He makes a gesture indicating orderliness. “Italian people are more like, ‘Whatever’. It was a big change but the football was the same. Football is the same all over the world.”

Nakata was 21 when he moved to Italy but was not daunted.

“I was not a huge fan of football, I didn’t watch football or read about it in the newspapers, I’m not that kind of person,” Nakata explains. “I just loved to play football and I just wanted to become a better player every day.

“When I arrived in Italy, the Italian league was the best in the world, there were players like Zinedine Zidane and Alessandro Del Piero, but I didn’t know many players. I didn’t even know half of the teams in the league.

“But this meant I could really focus on my game. That was my strength because I didn’t have any fear.”

His Italian sojourn shaped Nakata’s future life and way of thinking. “I really like the Italian people, Italian culture,” he says. “Even today, I say half of me is Japanese, and half is Italian.

“Italy is all about the fashion, music, design, architecture, food, so you can imagine how it influenced me.”

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After just 18 months at Perugia, Italy’s more established clubs came knocking. His next stop was Roma, joining in January 2000.

He scored a long-range goal that sparked a late comeback against Juventus in May 2001, helping Roma win their first ‘scudetto’ (league title) in almost 20 years. “Every time I go back to Rome, all the fans still come up to me and say, ‘Thank you Nakata’,” he says.

Nakata attracted plenty of media attention after signing for Roma in January 2000 (Gabriel Bouys/AFP/Getty Images)

But his spell at Fabio Capello’s Roma was often frustrating, as he found it hard to displace fan favourite Francesco Totti. After 18 months, he swapped the Italian capital for big-spending Parma, where it was a familiar tale despite his £18m price tag.

In a squad filled with internationals, including Stephen Appiah, Sabri Lamouchi and Hakan Sukur, during that nostalgic era of baggy shirts and big collars, he struggled to nail down a starting place and complained of being used in a more defensive role. Despite that, he still scored a crucial away goal for Parma in their Coppa Italia triumph over Juventus in 2002, lifting his second major trophy in Italy in consecutive years.

Off the pitch, he became known as a style icon who attended runway shows, drawing comparisons with former Manchester United and England player David Beckham. Nakata had his own website, accessible in multiple languages, that attracted around 10million views on the day he signed for Parma, before the days of social media.

“I started my own website around 25 years ago,” he explains. “At that time, no famous people or players or many companies had their own website. The media controlled everything, but I had a huge fight with (them) because many times they were writing lies and wrong things.

“I wanted to have my own voice to deliver.”

Thousands of Japanese tourists flocked to watch him play in Italy — 5,000 had turned up for his Perugia debut alone — and there was enormous demand for Nakata replica shirts. He was endorsed by big brands such as Mastercard, Canon and Nike, appearing in the latter’s campaign at the 2002 World Cup in Japan and South Korea, a tournament he became the face of.

Nakata at the 2002 World Cup in Japan (Yoshikazu Tsuno/AFP/Getty Images)

“Everyone in Japan was expecting that we would qualify for the knockout stages, out of the groups, which was very hard,” he says. “We were a very young team, most had never played in a World Cup. At that time, there were only a few of us playing overseas. So the pressure was huge. But at the same time, the atmosphere was amazing because the whole nation was cheering for us.”

The tournament helped raise the profile of football in Asia, yet Nakata was left frustrated by Japan’s performance.

“We could have done better,” he says. “We lost to Turkey in the round of 16.”

After a spat with Parma manager Cesare Prandelli, Nakata had brief spells at Bologna and Fiorentina between 2004 and 2006, before finishing his career in England, signing in August 2005 for Sam Allardyce’s Bolton Wanderers, who were playing in the UEFA Cup.

After seven years in Italy, the move to the cooler climes of northern England was a tough adjustment.

“Coming from Italy, the football was totally different,” he says. “A lot of the teams were playing long balls. That was a little bit of a shock. And then coming from Italy to Manchester, food-wise, it was different. There was a lot of rain. It was a little bit challenging.”

With a smile, he adds: “Before the matches, we used to have pasta, but coming from Italy, the pasta in Italy and the UK was completely different. Today, it’s much better, though.”

Following a largely underwhelming spell at Bolton, Nakata’s final game in club football came at the end of the 2005-06 season — a 1-0 victory against already-relegated Birmingham City, where he was substituted for Jay-Jay Okocha.

Sam Allardyce signed Nakata for Bolton in 2005 (Paul Barker/AFP/Getty Images)

Then came his tears on the pitch at that summer’s World Cup, his final goodbye.

When he reflects on his time in football, how would he like to be remembered as a player?

“I like beautiful play, elegance, it’s like how Zinedine Zidane (played), it’s beautiful,” he says. “It’s not about the speed or the power, it’s beautiful passes, beautiful play, it doesn’t need to be goals. I like elegance and I’m like that in life, not just in football. I like things that are elegant and beautiful — beautiful clothes, beautiful architecture, designs, views.”

After bowing out of the game, Nakata’s next act was to travel around the world, which he did non-stop for three years (he says he has visited around more than 100 countries). He then returned to his home country, eager to immerse himself in Japanese culture.

At this time, in 2009, Nakata became fascinated by sake, a Japanese alcoholic drink made from fermented rice. “When I was living in Italy, in my spare time, I used to visit wineries in the country,” he says. “So I started liking not only wine itself, but the people making the wines and the environment. Then when I came back to Japan, thinking about Japanese culture, obviously it’s not about the wine. It’s sake, right?

“So then I said, ‘OK, it’s unique, because sake is only made in Japan’. And, at that time, the Japanese food scene was becoming known around the world, but no one knew about the sake, including myself, so I thought that was a great opportunity to know about Japanese sake because it’s also part of Japanese culture as well.”

He began visiting breweries across Japan, meeting craftsmen, farmers and sake makers to understand the techniques, taste and history. He has since become a ‘master of sake’ and founded his own sake company to help the traditional Japanese industry. He has created his own tea brand.

It is clear, after an hour in his company, that he is not your typical footballer.

“When I retired at 29, a lot of people told me, ‘You can still play’, or, ‘Why don’t you work in the football industry and become a coach or whatever?’,” he says. “But I’m not choosing things to do because I can. No, I’m doing things because I want (to do them).

“I do what I like. So if I like fashion, I do fashion. If I like other culture, I do other culture. If I like sake, I do sake.

“Other people sometimes don’t understand why. It’s because I’m doing it for passion.”

(Top photo: Hidetoshi Nakata at Paris Fashion Week in 2023; by Julien M Hekimian via Getty Images)