<\/p>\n
2016.06.06<\/p>\n
Shinji Okazaki is a bona fide<\/span> legend in England.<\/p>\n I write this because Japanese media focus on Japanese sportsmen overseas to such an extent that it\u00a0can cause people in Japan to overestimate how much of an impact they are making. This is not the case with Okazaki. He\u2019s a big deal in England too.<\/p>\n In a sense that is surprising because he has his shortcomings as a player (more on that below).<\/p>\n The reasons for his popularity, as I see it, are as follows:<\/p>\n Firstly, and most crucially, he is part of a team that did something extraordinary. The same Shinji Okazaki wouldn\u2019t be anywhere near as famous or admired if he had done the same solid work in a team that came fifth or twelfth, or even second. And he\u2019s not a legend on his own: He\u2019s \u201cShinji Okazaki of that<\/span> Leicester team\u201d.<\/p>\n Secondly, he works very hard on the pitch. Fans pay good money to go to football games and invest a lot of emotional energy into their club. Every fan in the ground would give anything to play just once for their beloved team. Some literally<\/span> dream of it. So they don\u2019t like lazy players but they adore players with a good \u201cwork rate\u201d and will forgive them a lot. That\u2019s important for Okazaki because his passing isn\u2019t fantastic, he loses the ball a bit too often, doesn\u2019t get a huge amount of possession and has one even bigger weakness: he\u2019s a striker who doesn\u2019t score much. (Other stuff, he does extremely well.)<\/p>\n BUT, a third reason for his popularity is that Okazaki himself has been the first to admit he needs to score more. This is more than just \u201cdisarming\u201d. Fans know that a player who admits his faults is one who is actively working on it and therefore likely to improve. Fans dislike the kind of player who resents criticism or throws blame around (\u201cI am being played out of position\u201d, \u201cI am not getting the right service\u201d, \u201cmy team mates are getting in my way\u201d...). And they also think they aren\u2019t committed to doing what they can to fix things.<\/p>\n Fourthly, Okazaki just seems to love football. When he scores he looks absolutely delighted. One fan wrote \u201che seems to smile with his whole face<\/span>\u201d. It\u2019s endearing in itself but it taps into something deeper. It\u2019s how the fans would react if, in some alternative universe, they could pull on the shirt and score. Okazaki is happy for the team (he turns to celebrate with them) but he\u2019s blissfully happy for himself, which is an absolutely fine and natural reaction. Compare it to the preening superstars who points to his name on the back of his shirt (\u201cShout my name! I am the greatest\u201d), or rips off his shirt (\u201cLook at my wonderful body and adore me!) or, worst of all, makes a shushing gesture to opposing fans by placing a finger over his mouth (\u201cI silence you, mere mortals!\u201d) If I were to verbalise Okazaki\u2019s post-goal reaction it is: \u201cHurrah, we\u2019ve scored! Hurrah for us!\u201d<\/p>\n Hurrah for you Shinji: we\u2019re smiling with you.<\/p>\n <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Okazaki Smile 2016.06.06 Shinji Okazaki is a bona fide legend in England. I write this because Japanese media focus on Japanese sportsmen overseas to such an extent that it\u00a0can cause people in Japan to overestimate how much of an impact they are making. This is not the case with Okazaki. He\u2019s a big deal in England too. In a sense that is surprising because he has his shortcomings as a player (more on that below). The reasons for his popularity, as I see it, are as follows: Firstly, and most crucially, he is part of a team that did something extraordinary. The same Shinji Okazaki wouldn\u2019t be anywhere near as famous or admired if he had done the same[\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-434","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-colinjoyce","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sankenbook.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sankenbook.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sankenbook.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sankenbook.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sankenbook.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=434"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.sankenbook.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":438,"href":"https:\/\/www.sankenbook.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434\/revisions\/438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sankenbook.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sankenbook.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sankenbook.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}