On March 6, 2005, during an ASSE-OM (2-0) in the snow, Marseille left-back Koji Nakata made a “ghost pass” still mocked twenty years later. He came back to it.
When it comes to big technical errors in football, a meme systematically comes up in France: Koji Nakata's “ghost pass”. This happened almost twenty years ago (March 6, 2005), there have been plenty of failures since then, but none have been this ridiculous. A quick reminder of the facts: at the time, the Japanese left-back had only been at OM for two months. This famous March 6, Philippe Troussier started for a match against ASSE in the Chaudron. It snows during the game, the pitch is completely white, both teams play with an orange ball. During the game, Nakata receives it, controls it without looking at it and wants to pass. He performs the gesture but, surprise, the leather is not in the right place! He continued to drive after the check… This “ghost pass” has gone down in history. In today's edition, with this afternoon's Saint-Etienne-Marseille, L'Equipe publishes an interview with the Japanese, who explains what happened that day…
“I never told myself that I had missed my gesture”
“I make a good first check with a backspin to stop the ball coming at me. 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. I never told myself that I had missed my move. What if I panicked afterwards? Frankly, no more than that, I was in the moment, the match was crazy demanding, I didn't have time to think about it. It was a complicated season. But, at the Vélodrome, I had good matches, technically I was never on the street. Except for this gesture. I don't remember anyone talking to me about it in the locker room afterwards. We all lost the match, it was a difficult series. But I would have been keen to bring more to OM. »
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