Shinji Okazaki, who won the EPL with Leicester City, retires at the end of this season
Japanese veteran striker Shinji Okazaki (Sint Trawiden), who won the English Professional Football Premier League (EPL) with Leicester City,
will hang up his soccer shoes at the end of this season.
Okazaki announced on the 26th (local time) through social networking services (SNS) that he would end his player career with the 2023-2024 season. 카지노사이트킹
Shinji Okazaki, born in 1986, said, “I’ve done my best as a soccer player so far,” and added,
“I realized my body was breaking down.
I naturally feel like I’ve reached my limit.”
Okazaki, who debuted as a professional with Japan’s Shimizu S Pulse in 2005,
entered Europe wearing the uniform of Stuttgart in the German Bundesliga in 2011.
Afterwards, he joined Leicester City after playing in Mainz (Germany),
and reached the peak of his career by playing a key role in winning the EPL championship in the fairytale-like 2015-2016 season.
Leicester City, which had been at the bottom of the league in the 2014-2015 season and narrowly rose to 14th place and avoided relegation,
overtook a ‘big club’ boasting capital power the very next season and dramatically lifted the trophy for the first time in 132 years since its founding.
At the time, the British Daily Mail commented,
“The greatest fairy tale in sports was completed when Leicester City overcame odds of 1 in 5,000,”
and the miraculous narrative touched and resonated with soccer fans around the world.
Okazaki, who mainly played as a top two along with Leicester City’s signature Jamie Vardy,
scored 6 goals and 2 assists in 39 official games during the championship season.
Okazaki, who parted ways with Leicester City due to the expiration of his contract at the end of the 2018-2019 season,
went through Huesca and Cartagena (both in Spain) before joining Sint-T-T-Truidhan VV (Belgium) in 2022.
In the 2019-2020 season with Huesca, he was recorded as the team’s highest scorer (12 goals in the regular league),
leading the team to win the second division and promotion to the first division Primera Liga (La Liga).
He also played a key role in the Japanese national team, participating in three World Cups from the 2010 South Africa tournament to the 2018 Russia tournament.
He wore the Japan national team uniform and he played 119 games and scored 50 goals.