Shigetatsu Matsunaga

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Personal information
Shigetatsu Matsunaga
Full name	Shigetatsu Matsunaga
Date of birth	August 12, 1962 (1962-08-12) (age 45)
Place of birth	Japan
Height	5 ft 11 in (1.80 m)
Playing position	Goalkeeper
Youth clubs
1978-1980 1981-1984	Hamana High School Aichi Gakuin University
Senior clubs¹
Years	Club	App (Gls)*
1985-1995 1995-1996 1997 1997-2000	Nissan Motors/Yokohama Marinos Tosu Futures Brummell Sendai Kyoto Purple Sanga	334 00(0) 054 00(0) 015 00(0) 085 00(0)
National team
1988-1995	Japan	040 00(0)
¹ Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only. * Appearances (Goals)

Shigetatsu Matsunaga (松永成立, Shigetatsu Matsunaga^?, born 12 August 1962 in Shizuoka Prefecture) is a retired Japanese football (soccer) goalkeeper and a goalkeeping coach.

1 Playing career
2 Clubs
3 Honors and awards
- 3.1 Individual Honors
- 3.2 Team Honors

[edit] Playing career

He was educated at and played for Hamana High School and Aichi Gakuin University. After graduating from the university, he joined JSL side Nissan Motor F.C..

When Japan's first-ever professional league J. League started in 1993, Nissan F.C. was transformed to Yokohama Marinos for whom he continued to play. After he lost his position to young Yoshikatsu Kawaguchi who would also replace him as the first-choice goalkeeper in the national team, he moved to Japan Football League side Tosu Futures, the predecessor of Sagan Tosu, in 1996. He then moved to fellow JFL side Brummell Sendai in 1997. He came back to J. League to play for Kyoto Purple Sanga in 1998 and spent 3 seasons before he hanged up his boots in 2000.

He was capped 40 times for Japan between 1988 and 1995. He was the first-choice GK when Japan won the 1992 AFC Asian Cup. However, he was sent off for retaliation in the semi-final against China and Kazuya Maekawa filled in for him for the rest of the competition. He was also tending the goal when Japan's hope to play in the 1994 FIFA World Cup finals was dashed by a late Iraqi equaliser in the final qualifier, the match that the Japanese fans now refer to as the Agony of Doha.

After retiring from the game, he served as a goalkeeping coach for Kyoto Purple Sanga from 2001 to 2006. He is now a goalkeeping coach for Yokohama F. Marinos.