In my earlier article, I wrote about Shunsuke Nakamura’s second career, now in this article, I’ll focus on the interesting story about “Athletes and Food” that he told on 17 November, 2022.

On that day, he took the stage at the presentation of the conclusion of a partner contract with a company that sells gluten-free food with FC Barcelona, and he talked as follows in the interview session.

Shunsuke Nakamura “My favorite dish is ‘Kozuyu’. This dish is a local one of Aizuwakamatsu City, Fukushima Prefecture, which is my mother’s hometown.

“It’s a soup dish with a lot of ingredients such as Hirneola auricula-judae, mushrooms, taro, carrots, and wild vegetables. My mother often cooked that dish when I was young, and even after I became a footballer, when I went back to my parents’ house, my grandmother also made that dish for me,” Nakamura said.

“My mother’s menu was almost Washoku. I’ve liked simmered dishes since I was a child, and I definitely like rice balls with pickled plums. Looking back now, my strong body may be thanks to the Washoku my mother made for me'” the Celtic legend said.

“Now I sometimes make pasta for my children. As if you go to Rome, follow the Romans, I tried to eat the local cuisine of each country as much as possible in my career as a player.

“However, as a result of trying to eat the same foods as my teammates, I actually gained a little weight. Even if players of European team eat meat like every meal, they have physical function that can convert them into energy.

“But Japanese people, including me, have different body structures from them. As a result of trying to eat various foods, I finally realised that Japanese foods suits my physical condition best.”

“Basically, it’s difficult to procure Japanese ingredients overseas, but in Scotland, I was able to miraculously get “natto”. Natto is a difficult ingredient to get sent from Japan, so I was really grateful to be able to get it in Scotland. After that, by sending a large amount of long-lasting seaweed and hijiki from Japan, I was able to eat them and manage my physical condition effectively.”

“I love sour things, so I tried to put lemon juice on every dish. However, regardless of likes and dislikes, in order to improve my own performance, I always ate a lot of carbohydrates before the game. Even in Europe, after the club began to station nutritionists in clubhouse, players left management of meals entirely to them. We live in a good age.”

“On the contrary, I refrained from eating oily food. Also, I tried not to eat sweets as much as possible. I love sweets, though. I especially love “melon cream soda”, so I decided to drink it only once a year. I just drank melon cream soda just the other day, and it was so delicious.

“Therefore, for me, there’re too many sweet things in the cafe that tempts me, so I was patient not to go even though I was patient not to go even though I was dying to go there.”

Finally, he had the message to children as follows.

“When I was in junior high school, I didn’t know importance of a meal, and I ate as much as I wanted. As a result, I couldn’t perform well in games. The important thing is very simple. The important thing is to eat variety of ingredients in balanced manner. If you think “I want to be active in games” or “I want to gain stamina”, it might be good idea to get advice from nutritionists to review your diet.”

That’s all. It seems that there was thorough nutrition management behind his outstanding performance.

Yatao

READ THIS…This is Yatao: Focus on Shunsuke Nakamura’s second career

I am a Content Creator and Origami art Creator, Analyst working for think tank in Japan and I joined this team in May 2023 and started to write articles as Japanese Celtic author for The Celtic Star. I live in Kobe(Japan) and have followed Celtic after 14 October, 2006, when I had watched the game against Dundee United FC – Shunsuke Nakamura scored a hat-trick.

Also I am an enthusiastic supporter of Vissel Kobe, and I am familiar with various information and history of J-League. I have been posting threads on trajectory and background of Celtic Japanese players on Twitter mainly since summer of 2022 in order to further deepen the bond between Celtic and Japan. This time, I’m so proud to be more committed to Celtic by joining The Celtic Star team. I’m good at changing of viewpoints, so please expect my articles written from fresh perspective.

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