Paddy Agnew's Euroscene Column: For Japanese superstar Hidetoshi Nakata, this World Cup year was to have been the chance of a lifetime. Five months away from the tournament, however, his best laid plans seem to have gone frustratingly wrong.
The best-known Asian footballer on the planet, twice voted Asian player of the year, has encountered some unexpected problems this season both with his Italian club Parma and with his national team coach, Frenchman Philippe Troussier. While it is true almost none of the problems are of his own making, that in itself adds to the 25-year-old's frustration.
You have to go back more than 12 months to fully understand Nakata's dilemma. Last season, he found himself in the role of reserve with champions AS Roma. Even though he proved himself a vital cog in a title-winning campaign he found himself consistently shut out of the side by Francesco Totti.
Originally greeted with a mixture of scepticism and curiosity on his arrival in Italy in the summer of 1998, Nakata had defied critics with a tremendous first season at Perugia where he scored 10 Serie A goals and attracted the attention of Italy's biggest clubs.
His move to Roma in January 2000 was almost inevitable while his subsequent battle to find room in a star-packed Roma squad in which the local hero, cum national icon Totti played in Nakata's seemingly ideal midfield play-making role was all too predictable.
It came as no surprise then to learn, all of 12 months ago, Nakata and his advisers wanted to move on from the Eternal City at the end of the season. For a player of his talent, not to mention his huge notoriety in his native Japan, it would have been unthinkable to prepare for a World Cup sitting on the subs' bench. Hence his seemingly sage, financially lucrative, $30 million move to Parma last summer.
At the time, Parma were in the Champions League and looked set to honour their decade-long tradition of being among the most competitive sides in Serie A. Six months and three Parma coaches later, things have not worked out as planned.
Without players such as Frenchman Lilian Thuram, goalkeeper Gigi Buffon and Portuguese winger Sergio Conceicao, Parma struggled. They crashed out of the Champions League at the pre-qualifying stage. Not even the departure of coach Renzo Ulivieri, replaced first by Argentine Daniel Passarella and then by current coach Pietro Carmignani, could stop a slide down to the relegation zone. As we write, Parma are fourth last on 21 points, 22 points behind leaders Roma.
In such a difficult context, no one, Nakata included, has looked good. In such troubled waters, Nakata has had to struggle to hold onto his team place. Ruled out of Saturday night's welcome 2-1 home win against Bologna by an injury, Nakata was by no means sure to have played since coach Carmignani may have preferred Frenchman Johan Micoud.
As if all of this were not bad enough, however, Nakata has also struggled to handle a difficult relationship with Japanese national team coach Troussier. Perhaps resentful of Nakata's superstar status, Troussier has appeared to suggest (most recently last week) that, if necessary, Japan can do just fine without Nakata.
This, of course, is just silly. Japan will certainly not win the World Cup but their best chances of putting on a good first-round show are all too obviously linked to Nakata, the team's only genuine, international-class player.
Further frustration tends to come Nakata's way when he attempts to explain himself. When he told Japanese reporters recently he hoped to be picked for the World Cup on merit and not because of his name, the tabloid Japanese press translated that into a "Nakata-opts-out-of-World-Cup Reckoning" style story.
As of now, Nakata is concentrating on his club football and trying to avoid talking about the World Cup. By next May, he hopes fortune's fickle wheel will have spun around in his direction both at Parma and with Japan. Neutral fans should hope so, too, because he is too good a player to miss out on his once-in-a-lifetime chance.
