Shunsuke Nakamura's incredible post Celtic career and how he still played top-level football well into his forties

By 2009 when he left Glasgow, the Japanese midfielder had become a household name in football and heralded as some sort of demi-God in Glasgow.

Nakamura is best remembered for possessing wonderful vision, a sublime touch as well as an unerring ability to bend a ball.

His legendary free-kick taking bordered on the supernatural.

Former Tottenham Hotspur captain and England midfielder Steve Perryman, who won the FA cup and UEFA cup with the London side, once famously remarked that Nakamura "could open up a tin of beans with his left foot".

He wasn’t wrong you know.

During Nakamura’s time at Celtic, he was lauded as one of the best Asian players to have ever plied their trade in Europe.

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In 2007, he was nominated for the Ballon d’Or and won both the Scottish Player of the Year and SFWA Footballer of the Year awards while also etching his name into the history books as the first Japanese player to score in the Champions League.

Nakamura lifted the Scottish Premier League title with the Hoops in 2006, 2007 and 2008 as well as helping himself to the Scottish League Cup in 2006 and 2009 and the Scottish Cup in 2007.

Nobody - at least of a Celtic persuasion - will ever forget the moment he became a club hero and embedded himself in the hearts and minds of the Hoops faithful forever on November 21st 2006.

A trademark free-kick some 30 yards from goal pierced the East End of Glasgow’s night air and landed sumptuously in the top corner of Manchester United goalkeeper Edwin Van der Sar’s net to hand Celtic a priceless 1-0 victory in the Champions League group stages over Sir Alex Ferguson’s men at Celtic Park.

With one swish of the trusted left boot Nakamura had entered Celtic folklore.

It was a strike worthy of sending Strachan’s men through to the last 16 of the Champions League for the first time in Celtic's illustrious footballing history.

And it remains a club career high for Nakamura. Little wonder that Strachan hailed him as a ‘genius’.

It is now 12 years since Nakamura left Celtic and many of his 166 appearances and 34 goals linger long in the memory banks.

Former Hoops striker and team-mate Scott McDonald insists Nakamura is the best player he ever played alongside.

Nakamura is still playing aged 43

Speaking on BBC Sportsound last year, McDonald said: “Nakamura is the best footballer I have ever played with. The hours he put in, what a professional he was. He used to go out for hours on end, hitting free-kicks after training. It could be minus-two degrees outside and Naka would be saying ‘just another one, just another one'.”

But what happened to the enigmatic Japanese star when he left Celtic?

He was capped for Japan 98 times and scored 24 goals for his country and appeared at both the FIFA World Cup finals in 2006 and 2010.

Nakamura’s European football odyssey continued as Spanish football came calling as he signed for La Liga outfit Espanyol in the summer of 2009 on a two-year deal.

He teamed up with Mauricio Pochettino at the RCDE Stadium but the relationship with the future Tottenham and Paris Saint-Germain boss soon turned sour as the midfielder made just 13 appearances for the Spaniards, scoring no goals.

Pochettino put Nakamura’s lack of form and subsequent loss of his first-team place down to "cultural issues" and there were rumours of a possible reunion with Strachan, now at Middlesbrough.

A move to Teesside never came to fruition, however, and Nakamura's career came full circle when he re-signed for Yokahama Marinos for 1 million euros in time for the start of the J-League season in 2010.

He may have returned to the place which had launched him on the path to football stardom but he had one eye on making the Japan squad for the World Cup in South Africa in 2010.

Nakamura went on to play 32 matches – 31 of those were starts – and score five goals that season as he made the team for South Africa.

A year later he was made captain of the Marinos and guided them to their highest J-League points tally (56) since they captured the title in 2004.

More silverware success followed when the Marinos won the Emperor's Cup in 2013.

Perhaps predictably, Nakamura then went on to surpass Yasuhito Endo’s league record of 17 free-kick goals.

That season was to end on a sour note as the Marinos collapsed to three defeats in their last four matches of the campaign and agonisingly lost out on the title by a solitary point behind Sanfreece Hiroshima.

Nakamura is on record as saying it is the "worst moment" of his career and not even becoming the first and only multiple winner of the J-League Most Valuable Player award could soften the blow.

In 2016 he became the longest-serving captain in Marinos history, passing the achievements of Masami Ihari, and extended his record free-kick goals total to an astonishing 22.

An acrimonious transfer to Jubilo Iwata in 2017 led to Marinos general manager Takao Toshishige expressing his regret at the club's failure to extend Nakamura’s deal and, such was the midfielder's popularity with Marinos, his departure resulted in a one-third drop in annual revenue streams.

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Nakamura was on the move again in July 2019 when he put pen to paper for Yokahama FC. Remarkably, he will celebrate his 43rd birthday later this month and he is still playing.

Yet, amazingly, he is not the oldest player in the side.

That honour belongs to Kazuyoshi Miura, who is still going strong at 54. 'King Kazu', as he is known, played in the J-League alongside the likes of Gary Lineker and Zico.

Nakamura, though, is not ready to hang up the football boots just yet. His focus remains solely on making sure Yokahama FC preserve their J-League status this season.

Nakamura’s star still burns as brightly as ever in his native Japan as well as in the East End of Glasgow where he has ascertained cult status.

Few would bet against Nakamura playing on until he is 50.

Maybe it is written in the stars.

After all, they’ve only gone and named Asteroid 29986 Shunsuke in his honour.