is a Japanese professional

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby lea ...

who plays for club Verspah Oita. He scored the two goals that won the

2016 J1 League The 2016 Meiji Yasuda J1 League (2016 明治安田生命J1リーグ) season was the 51st season of top-flight football in Japan and the 24th since the establishment of the J.League in 1992. This was second season of J1 League as renamed from J. ...

final for

Kashima Antlers The are a professional association football, football club based in Kashima, Ibaraki, Japan. They currently play in the J1 League, the top tier of Japanese professional football leagues. The club has financial backing from Mercari, a Japanese ...

over

Urawa Red Diamonds The or simply Urawa Reds (浦和レッズ, ''Urawa Rezzu''), also known as Mitsubishi Urawa Football Club from April 1992 to January 1996, are a professional association football, football club in the city of Saitama (city), Saitama, part of t ...

Club career

On 25 March 2020, Kanazaki returned to

Nagoya Grampus ; formerly known as is a Japanese association football club that plays in the J1 League, and have for all but one season since the inauguration of the league, following promotion from the J2 League in 2017. Based in Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture an ...

on loan from

Sagan Tosu is a Japanese professional Association football, football club based in Tosu, Saga, Tosu, Saga Prefecture. The club plays in the J2 League, the second tier of Japanese football, since 2025 following relegation from the J1 League in 2024 J1 Leag ...

until 31 January 2021. On 15 January 2021, following his season on loan at Nagoya Grampus, Kanazaki signed permanently for the club. On 24 February 2023, Kanazaki officially announced his transfer to FC Ryukyu after their relegation from the

J2 League The or simply J2 is the second division of the and the second level of the Japanese association football league system. The top tier is represented by the J1 League. It (along with the rest of the J.League) is currently sponsored by Meiji Yasud ...

ahead of the 2023 J3 League season.

International career

Kanazaki made his full international debut for

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

on 20 January 2009 in a 2011 AFC Asian Cup qualification against

Yemen Yemen, officially the Republic of Yemen, is a country in West Asia. Located in South Arabia, southern Arabia, it borders Saudi Arabia to Saudi Arabia–Yemen border, the north, Oman to Oman–Yemen border, the northeast, the south-eastern part ...

Career statistics

Club

International

:''Scores and results list Japan's goal tally first, score column indicates score after each Kanazaki goal.''

Honours

Oita Trinita * J.League Cup:

2008 2008 was designated as: *International Year of Languages *International Year of Planet Earth *International Year of the Potato *International Year of Sanitation The Great Recession, a worldwide recession which began in 2007, continued throu ...

Nagoya Grampus *

J1 League The , the J.League or the for sponsorship reasons, is a professional association football league in Japan and the highest level of the Japanese football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation ...

2010 The year saw a multitude of natural and environmental disasters such as the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and the 2010 Chile earthquake. The 2009 swine flu pandemic, swine flu pandemic which began the previous year ...

* Japanese Super Cup:

2011 The year marked the start of a Arab Spring, series of protests and revolutions throughout the Arab world advocating for democracy, reform, and economic recovery, later leading to the depositions of world leaders in Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen ...

* J.League Cup:

2021 Like the year 2020, 2021 was also heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, due to the emergence of multiple Variants of SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19 variants. The major global rollout of COVID-19 vaccines, which began at the end of 2020, continued ...

Kashima Antlers * J.League Cup:

2015 2015 was designated by the United Nations as: * International Year of Light * International Year of Soil __TOC__ Events January * January 1 – Lithuania officially adopts the euro as its currency, replacing the litas, and becomes ...

2016 2016 was designated as: * International Year of Pulses by the sixty-eighth session of the United Nations General Assembly. * International Year of Global Understanding (IYGU) by the International Council for Science (ICSU), the Internationa ...

* Emperor's Cup:

* Japanese Super Cup:

2017 2017 was designated as the International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development by the United Nations General Assembly. Events January * January 1 – Istanbul nightclub shooting: A gunman dressed as Santa Claus opens fire at the ...

Individual * J. League Cup New Hero Award:

References

Portimonense anuncia regresso de Mu Kanazaki
desporto.sapo.pt, 25 December 2015

External links

* * *

Living people 1989 births Association football people from Mie Prefecture Japanese men's footballers Men's association football midfielders Japan men's international footballers J1 League players J2 League players J3 League players Japan Football League players Bundesliga players Liga Portugal 2 players Oita Trinita players Nagoya Grampus players 1. FC Nürnberg players Portimonense S.C. players Kashima Antlers players Sagan Tosu players FC Ryukyu players Verspah Oita players Japanese expatriate men's footballers Japanese expatriate sportspeople in Portugal Japanese expatriate sportspeople in Germany Expatriate men's footballers in Germany Expatriate men's footballers in Portugal 21st-century Japanese sportsmen Long stubs with short prose {{Japan-footy-midfielder-1980s-stub