TOKYO (AFP) – Evergreen Japanese soccer star Kazuyoshi Miura stated he “nonetheless has the eagerness” to proceed his profession at 54, the native media reported on Monday (Dec 13), with contract affords nonetheless coming his method.
Miura, often known as “King Kazu”, prolonged his file as Japan’s oldest footballer this 12 months, turning out for Yokohama FC within the J-League’s prime division.
However the veteran’s contribution was minimal, managing just one minute of league motion all season as his facet completed backside of the desk.
Now he’s contemplating a brand new problem, with affords from two fourth-tier groups reportedly on the desk.
Miura stated Yokohama has additionally provided him one other contract extension, however he’s decided to signal for a staff “with a transparent imaginative and prescient”.
“I have been saying for the previous 10 years that if there is a staff that wishes me and desires me, I am going to go no matter what division they’re in, and that hasn’t modified,” the Nikkan Sports activities every day reported him as saying in Osaka, the place he’s coaching to maintain in form.
“So long as I nonetheless have the eagerness, in fact I wish to go for it,” he stated.
“I nonetheless have the eagerness.”
Miura reportedly obtained a suggestion to hitch fourth-tier facet Suzuka Level Getters, who’re managed by his older brother Yasuhiro.
“King Kazu” stated he was eager to hitch a membership with ambitions of shifting up the divisions.
“If a membership simply says ‘come right here’, that is no good,” stated Miura, who additionally has a reported provide to hitch fourth-tier Kochi United.
“It is higher to go to a membership with a transparent imaginative and prescient.”
Miura, who will flip 55 in February, has stated he desires to maintain taking part in till he turns 60.
One in all Asia’s best-known footballers within the Nineteen Nineties, he helped put the sport in Japan on the map when the skilled J-League was launched in 1993.
He left Japan for Brazil in 1982 and signed a contract with Santos FC in 1986 to make his skilled debut.
He made his Japan debut in 1990 and was famously omitted of his nation’s squad for his or her first World Cup finals look in 1998, regardless of scoring 55 targets in 89 video games for the nationwide facet by the point he performed his last worldwide in 2000.