On November 13, the candidate for the 99th All Japan High School FootballErs' Rights Conference was officially confirmed, and former Japan international defender Takato Uchida, who retired in August this year, was officially confirmed.
This is the second time that Uchida has held this position. In the 90th National Competition in 2011, he was the first ambassador to help, when he had just joined the Bundesliga Schalke 04 for less than half a year, but he had already locked in the position of the main right-back, and was one of the best full-backs in Asia.
Nine years later, Uchida was once again serving as an ambassador after retiring, and was the second player to serve twice after Shinji Ono (2002 and 2003). At the same time, Uchida is also the first person in history to be able to serve as an ambassador after retiring from the military, which shows his appeal in Japanese football.
Interestingly, Uchida has never competed in a national competition. Because in his high school years, Shimizu Higashi High School never broke through the Shizuoka Prefectural Qualifiers, and his best result was the top eight in the prefecture in his junior year of high school (the 84th tournament in 2005). Despite this, Uchida, who was only a sophomore who switched from a forward to a full-back, was selected for the Japanese U-series national team as a representative of the first batch of "early players" selected by the Japanese Football Association in high school, and then was selected by the giants Kashima And directly entered the J-League after graduation.
Uchida wrote a handwritten letter for the competition titled "Forward.". In an interview, Uchida said that if there is one word to describe high school football, it is "youth". He served as ambassador again, hoping that everyone would not leave regrets in the special environment of the current epidemic.
Since officially retiring in August, Uchida has indeed never left football. Although he can enter the show business circle with his appearance, as he said at the beginning, "he seems to be not good at anything but football."
Uchida once said that he could not be a coach because the coach was too tired and he wanted to spend more time with his daughter. But he apparently reneged on his promise, and not long after retiring, the Japanese Football Association announced that Uchida had joined the coaching staff led by Masanaga Shadow Mountain of the U19 national team and began to take on a new role: role model coach.
It can be said that this position seems to be set up specifically for Uchida. According to the Japan Football Association, Uchida will participate in the training of Japan's national teams of all ages and the strengthening and popularization of youth football in the future, with the aim of conveying the experience and skills he has accumulated on the world stage to japan's descendants.
Uchida himself never announced that he wanted to coach, but in an interview, Yasuharu Inomachi, the technical committee chairman of the Japanese Football Association, revealed some information: "The reason why Uchida holds this position is that on the one hand, he can pass on the advanced football concepts in Europe to young people, on the other hand, he does not have a coaching certificate and needs to learn slowly..."
During his first training camp in September, Uchida, who had been retiring for only three weeks, put on his sportswear and played with young players to pass and fight. In training, he constantly stressed the importance of technology to the young internationals and made it clear that the players were "far behind" in some aspects.
Although Uchida's appearance is very gentle at all times, such words are somewhat harsh, but because of his outstanding experience, Uchida's words are very important among young people. At the retirement conference three months ago, Uchida made it clear that after retiring, some words could be said, that is, "the gap between Japanese football and the world is still very large." I am afraid that it is precisely with such an idea that he has no hesitation in stepping into this post.
Uchida's performance was also approved by Coach Masanaga Shadow Mountain. Even at the daily preparatory meetings, Shadow Mountain supervisor set aside a few minutes for Uchida to speak. In October, Uchida participated in the training camp for the second time. On the afternoon of November 13, the Japan Football Association announced the new U19 national team roster, and Uchida joined the team as a role model coach for the third time.
It seems that Coach Uchida is indeed already on the way.