If Saint-Étienne and OM face each other this Sunday (2:45 p.m.) in a 32nd final of the Coupe de France, the same poster in the French championship in March 2005 was marked by snow and a completely missed pass from the Japanese Koji Nakata.
On March 6, 2005, during a Ligue 1 match between Saint-Etienne and OM, Koji Nakata made an impression with a completely missed pass in the snow. Having stayed only one year in Provence, the former defender (45 years old) returned this Sunday for L'Equipe on his gesture.
After a check, Koji Nakata tried to send a pass to a teammate. Problem: the Japanese made his move without the ball, which continued to roll behind him. “Tense” for his first match in the OM jersey, the person concerned assures that he had “the right crampons” and already had experience on snow.
“I never told myself that I had missed my move”
“I made a good first check with a retro effect (from the flat of the foot) to stop the ball coming at me,” said Nakata, who does not remember being mocked by his partners. “In Kashima, it was the Brazilian school. Controlling your head up, seeing one step ahead, that was the basis of our football.”
“So I'm already trying to project myself into the next move and I'm sure that the ball is warm under my center of gravity,” added Nakata, who assures that he has “never been on the street” of a technical point of view apart from this failure. “I never told myself that I had missed my move.”
Nakata, however, has very good memories of his time in Marseille, where he “learned a lot in a short time”. Arriving at OM thanks to Philippe Troussier, whom he had known at the head of Japan, Nakata was selected for the 2006 World Cup, a few months after his departure from the club.
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