Naoya Kikuchi
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Naoya Kikuchi (菊地 直哉 Kikuchi Naoya?, born November 24, 1984) is a professional footballer for Jubilo Iwata of the J. League, the top professional football league in Japan. Born in Shizuoka Prefecture, he played for Shizumi Shogyu High School, which has a strong soccer tradition with players such as Shinji Ono among its alumni.
He was part of the 2004 Olympic football team for Japan that exited the tournament in the first round, having finished last in group B behind the teams from Paraguay, Italy, and Ghana. He also had an impressive World U/17 Championship tournament in 2001. In 2002, he was invited to have a try-out at Arsenal F.C. and later went on to have another trial with a Dutch team, Feyenoord Rotterdam. He capped for Japan U-20 team at the 2003 FIFA World Youth Championship.
| Júbilo Iwata - Current Squad |
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1 Kawaguchi | 2 Suzuki | 3 Chano | 4 Ohi | 5 Tanaka | 6 Marquinhos | 7 Ohta | 8 Kikuchi | 9 Nakayama | 10 Naruoka | 11 Nishi | 13 Morishita | 14 Murai | 15 Kaga | 16 Hayashi | 17 Inuzuka | 18 Maeda | 19 Okada | 20 Nakajima | 21 Sato | 22 Cullen | 24 Matsuura | 25 Fabricio | 26 Morino | 27 Ueda | 28 Funatani | 29 Yamazaki | 30 Hatta | 31 Matsui | 32 Yamamoto | Manager: Adilson |
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