Masami Ihara

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You have new messages (last change).
This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards.
Please discuss this issue on the talk page or replace this tag with a more specific message.
This article has been tagged since November 2005.
The neutrality of this article is disputed.
Please see the discussion on the talk page.

Masami Ihara (井原 正巳 Ihara Masami?, born September 18, 1967 in Minakuchi, Shiga) is a former Japanese footballer. The influential defender was captain of the Japan national football team for more than a decade in the 1990s and was a pillar of strength in Japan's national team in the 1990s together with striker Kazuyoshi Miura and Brazilian-born midfielder Ruy Ramos. Ihara's impressive record of 123 national team appearances has yet to be equalled by another Japanese player.

A down-to-earth player, the sweeper was hardly out of the spotlight in the emerging J-League throughout the 1990s. Ihara spent most of his career with Yokohama Marinos and formed a key defensive partnersip with the flamboyant Kitazawa at club level. After graduating from university, Ihara joined Nissan Motor FC ( now known as Yokohama Marinos) and rapidly rose through the Marinos youth ranks to become a key player. The long-serving Ihara was so important to his club that he was nicknamed Mister Marinos by many Japanese fans. He formed the backbone of the club and also helped to bring on talented youngsters like Yoshikatsu Kawaguchi and Shunsuke Nakamura.

During the 1998 World Cup in France , the veteran sweeper's experience was crucial to Japan's survival in their very first World Cup appearance, forming a flat back four defence with strong centre-back Yutaka Akita as well as speedy fullbacks Naoki Soma and Akira Narahashi (all from Kashima Antlers). Young Marinos goalkeeper Yoshikatsu Kawaguchi was Japan's first choice goalkeeper at the time.

Despite not being the quickest center-back around, Ihara's biggest strength was his calm composure and exceptional positional sense, able to defuse dangers with his clever reading of the game. He was also strong in the air and his experience, professionalism and leadership on and off the field was also highly valued by the JFA.

Ihara was awarded the Asian Player of the Year award in 1995.

After leaving Marinos, Ihara also spent a season with Júbilo Iwata and his last 2 seasons with Urawa Reds prior to hanging up his boots and turning to coaching.

Contents

[edit] Clubs

[edit] Honors and awards

[edit] Individual Honors

[edit] National team

[edit] External links

Preceded by
Flag of Saudi Arabia Saeed Owairan		 Asian Footballer of the Year
1995		 Succeeded by
Flag of Iran Khodadad Azizi
Flag of Japan Japan squad - 1998 FIFA World Cup Flag of Japan

1 Kojima | 2 Narahashi | 3 Soma | 4 Ihara | 5 Omura | 6 Yamaguchi | 7 Ito | 8 Nakata | 9 Nakayama | 10 Nanami | 11 Ono | 12 Lopes | 13 Hattori | 14 Okano | 15 Morishima | 16 Saito | 17 Akita | 18 Jo | 19 Nakanishi | 20 Kawaguchi | 21 Narazaki | 22 Hirano | Coach: Okada
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../m/a/s/Masami_Ihara_18b2.html"
In other languages