Yasuhito Endo – Centurion

November 3rd, 2010 | by: Aidan | Comments Off

Japan’s recent draw with South Korea saw Yasuhito Endo achieve quite a landmark. He became only the fourth Japanese player to win 100 caps for his country which is no mean feat.

His senior debut came in November 2002 against Argentina having previously been involved at youth level, notably in the 1999 World Youth Championships run to the final. That senior debut was of course after the home World Cup, and was near the beginning of the Zico reign.

Zico took him to four successive tournaments over the next four years. He played all three group matches in the 2003 Confederations Cup and almost all of the 2004 Asian Cup victory too, but missed out on the Final thanks to getting sent-off in the dramatic semi-final win over Bahrain. But he collected a winners medal from that one of course.

But by 2005, and the Confederations Cup again he was relegated to squad member, only getting on the pitch once. Squad member again in the 2006 World Cup he didn’t get onto the pitch at all.

However by the following summer, with Ivica Osim in charge, he was back to being an integral part of the Japanese midfield and was again ever-present in the 2007 Asian Cup, also weighing in with one of his nine international goals so far against Vietnam, plus scoring in the shoot-outs against Australia and South Korea.

But the highlight for him must surely be the 2010 World Cup, where he was a vital part of the midfield, this time as Asian Player of the Year, and scored the second goal in the crucial group decider with Denmark.

Ahead of him on the list of Japanese appearances are Masami Ihara on 122, Yoshikatsu Kawaguchi on 114 and Yuji Nakazawa on 110. Nakazawa of course will still be hoping to add a few more before finally hanging up his international boots so to speak, and Endo too will hope that there are many more to add to his total.

Given the emergence of Keisuke Honda and Shinji Kagawa in the eye catching attacking roles, Endo’s role will have to be more defensive in future, not that he hasn’t performed this on many occasions before, although perhaps he will need to be very disciplined in the role and curb some of his box to box instincts.

But Endo has already shown he can function within the new look youthful Japanese side and his experience may come in handy in the New Year with another Asian Cup to look forward too.