Celtic Exclusive – Gordon Strachan’s inside track on signing Shunsuke Nakamura

Gordon Strachan speaks to Matt Corr from The Celtic Star about how the Shunsuke Nakamura transfer to Celtic came about…

A few days ago we took the opportunity, thanks to our friends at Casino Beats who certainly know a winner when they see one, of asking Gordon about two key factors in his first season as the manager of Celtic, the signing of Shunsuke Nakamura and the New Year’s Day game at Tynecastle which swung the destination of the League title heavily in Celtic’s direction. We’ll start today by covering the sensational signing of Shunsuke Nakamura back in late July 2005.

This is Gordon’s recollection of the identification and recruitment of the King of Japan back in the summer of 2005, which incredibly will be 20 years ago next month.

“To be fair, nobody knew who he was when I was there. We didn’t have a real recruitment [department]that spread its wings beyond the UK in those days. It didn’t go any further than that. It was the manager’s knowledge. That was it,” Gordon Strachan told The Celtic Star.

The former Celtic manager continued: “I had seen Naka on my travels, on the sabbatical I had between Southampton and Manchester City. I went to a lot of different games, and I saw this fellow playing with Reggina. Their owner at that time was a bit eccentric to say the least. I think he had signed Colonel Gaddafi’s son, that’s the kind of guy he was.

“It was quite simple. When I got in there [to Celtic], we looked about. We were short of midfield players. The game was changing a wee bit. It wasn’t easy at that time. It wasn’t like now when you can put in a player’s name and all his information comes at you. We had to go and pick out different games on video. Get them taped. And then I gave one to Tommy [Burns], gave one to Garry Pendrey and I gave one to Jim Blyth. I said, ‘Listen have a look at this tonight, lads, and tell me what you think. I’ve seen this fella. I think he’s terrific. He’s left-footed but he can play in a lot of different positions.’

“Ok so we went away and the next again day they all come along and said, “Woah. Where did you see him?””

“So I told them, and we all agreed that we’ll go for this fella. And that was our recruitment thing at the time.

“So we did that, and we got him on board. The fee was just over one million pounds, I think. He wasn’t highly paid. He wasn’t a big earner at that time. We had to cut the wage bill. The club had decided that was no longer viable, so we had to look at people in that price range.

“It was about one of the best things we ever did. Not only for his ability on the pitch but his professionalism on and off the pitch spread through the club. To the Gary Caldwells, Stephen McManus, Aiden, Sean…they all joined in with his professionalism.

“And that was without the aid of sports science. It was just people looking at a good player on the pitch and saying, “Right I’ll try to emulate some of that.” It’s the same when you see a good player off the pitch, you go, “I’ll emulate some of that.”

“So that’s what he did. He was different to anybody else we had seen.

“Talking about good professionals. We all thought we were good professionals, even myself, until we had seen this fella. He was dedicated to the game. He went on to play until he was 43 or something like that? Something crazy.”

Matt Corr

Next time we’ll feature Gordon Strachan’s comments on that incredible New Year game against Hearts at Tynecastle when Celtic came back from 2-0 down to win in the most dramatic circumstances. Gordon Strachan pinpoints that win as the most vital in Celtic’s title triumph that season.

Much more on this in Majic, Stan and the King of Japan that tells the story of Gordon Strachan’s first season as Celtic manager. Available in hardback from celticstarbooks.com and it’s also on Amazon kindle for those who prefer a digital read.