Shō Itō

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Shō Itō
Ito Sho, Omiya vs Shimizu 2012 (cropped) .jpg
Shō Itō in the summer of 2012
Personnel
birthday July 24, 1988
place of birth Kasugai , Aichi Prefecture ,  Japan
size 184 cm
position striker
Juniors
Years station
Kasugai Ono Elementary School
Kasugai Central Middle School
2004-2006 Chūkyō University high school
Men's
Years station Games (goals) 1
2007-2010 Grenoble Foot 5 (0)
2007-2010 Grenoble Foot B 6 (1)
2010-2014 Shimizu S-Pulse 49 (8)
2014-2018 Yokohama F. Marinos 134 (29)
2019– Kashima Antlers 4 (4)
National team
Years selection Games (goals)
2005-2006 Japan U-20 3 (0)
1 Only league games are given.
As of March 17, 2019

Shō Itō ( Japanese 伊藤 翔 , Itō Shō ; born July 24, 1988 in Kasugai , Aichi Prefecture ) is a Japanese football player . Since January 2019 he has been under contract with the Japanese first division club Kashima Antlers . Especially in his young career he was referred to as the "Japanese Thierry Henry " because of his size, his technical football skills and his speed . He was also the first Japanese soccer player to move from high school to a European club in 2007.

Club career

Start of career & move to Europe

Shō Itō, born in 1988 in the city of Kasugai, had his first appearances as a football player at the Ono elementary school in his hometown. From there, the young Itō moved to the Central Middle School Kasugai, where he was also part of the school's football team. After about three years at middle school, the offensive player switched to high school at Chūkyō University , to which he belonged from 2004 to 2006. Especially during his time at the high school his playful quality was discovered with it even in the squad of Japanese Juniorennationalelf in the AFC U-19 Championship of 2006 abolished. Also this year, especially during his participation in the Asian Cup, scouts from European clubs became aware of the young right-footed player. In the same year he was associated with the Premier League club Arsenal . In August 2006, months before his appearance during the Asian Cup, he completed a trial training session at the top English club, where he was able to convince their long-time coach Arsène Wenger . Since it then came to problems with a permanent work permit, the move to the highest English football league failed, which led to other European top clubs courting the young striker. In January 2007, a contract was finally signed with the then French second division club Grenoble Foot , where he signed a contract with a three and a half year term. He had already completed a trial training session in Grenoble in the summer, but initially failed due to the lack of a work permit. Together with Ito, his compatriot Tsukasa Umesaki was signed, who left the club as a loaner in the same year.

The young Japanese man with the shirt number 20 made his professional league debut on February 9, 2007 in the 0-1 away defeat against Amiens SC when he came on the field in the 79th minute for the Senegalese Chérif Ousmane Sarr . In the course of the season he made it to no further use in professional events, but sat on the bench a few times. He was also used in the B-team of the club, but mainly trained with the professionals. While the professionals ranked fifth in the table at the end of the season , Shō Itō was only used sporadically in the following 2007/08 season . So he had only two short appearances in October 2007, as well as another brief assignment at the end of the season, in the final game against CS Sedan . During this season he also played in the B-team on the side, but was also in a game in the Coupe-de-France season 2007/08 for the professional division. While the team was eliminated on penalties against HSC Montpellier in the eighth round , the team was able to advance to third place in the final standings in the league. In this position you eventually rose to the top division in French football. In the 2008/09 promotion season , the 1.84 m tall center forward was not in a single encounter with the professional team, but made a few appearances for the B-Elf. At the end of the season, the team was in 13th place in the closely spaced second half of the table. Ligue 1 2009/10 Itō still made his first division debut when he came to the end of the season, almost two years after his last professional league assignment, on May 5, 2010 in a 1-1 draw against RC Lens in minute 70 for Croatian Josip Tadić came onto the field. Towards the end of the season he was also often in the professional squad, but only sat on the bench. He could not prevent the relegation of his team, five wins and eight draws were clearly not enough, in the second division. In the B-Elf, Shō Itō was in six official league games in 2009/10, in which he once scored a goal.

Return to the Homeland

After his contract expired this season, the now 22-year-old Japanese moved back home, where he was signed to Shimizu S-Pulse in the J. League Division 1 . There he was initially given the shirt number 36 and was used in two games in the current 2010 season . He made his debut in Japan's premier soccer league on October 16, 2010, when he ran up in a 1-1 draw against Kyōto Sanga in the 92nd minute for Akihiro Hyodo . While Sho Ito in two games of the J.League Cup of 2010 year the squad was his team, but was no use, he was not at the finals of Shimizu S-Pulse in the Emperor's Cup in 2010 involved where the team only with 1: 2 was eliminated by the Kashima Antlers . At the age of 23, the center forward was just about to make a breakthrough in the adult field in the 2011 game year , where he was used in the first round for the full game, the first time in his almost five-year professional career. In the following rounds he was often placed in the starting line-up, but then retired in June 2011 due to a meniscus injury from almost all of the game for the rest of the season. It was not until the end of the 2011 game year that he returned to the Shimizu S-Pulse squad, where, after two short appearances and two games on the bench in the last game of the season against Gamba Osaka, he ran back over the full game and also scored his first goal in a professional league scored. Furthermore, he came to appearances in the J. League Cup and in the Kaiser Cup that year, with the team eliminated in both competitions before the final.

In the following game year, 2012 , he was able to show almost the same performance record as a year earlier. Eleven league appearances with one hit were compared to three cup appearances with also one hit; Itō was only used more often in the Kaiser Cup in 2012 and made five games in this tournament with just one goal. But after his injury, he couldn't really come up with a constant form and was only on the field for a few minutes for most of his appearances. In the league, Shō Itō reached a comfortable place in the middle of the table with Shimizu S-Pulse, in the J. League Cup, however, they made it into the final. After a game that was balanced over long distances, the center forward's team, who had only been running since 2011 with the shirt number 14, lost 2-1 to the Kashima Antlers in extra time . In the J. League Division 1 2013 , Itō's numbers increased, but there was little to see from Constance. A low at the beginning of the season, where he only made a few short appearances, was followed by longer appearances from around the eleventh round of the current season, although he rarely made it over the full length of the game. After he was back in the squad of his team without appearances and only made occasional short appearances, he had one of his greatest personal successes to date on October 19, 2013 in a 6: 4 home win over Sagan Tosu . He managed his first hat trick in his professional career in this game , after goals in the sixth, 22nd and 88th minutes of the game, once each with his left and right foot, as well as with his head. In this again only average season it brought Shō Itō to 25 league appearances, in which he contributed a total of six goals and gave another template.

In mid-January 2014 there was another change of direction for the right foot. He joined the reigning Imperial Cup winner and runner-up, the Yokohama F. Marinos . In the navy blue from the port city of Yokohama , he received the number 16 and is with Takuro Yajima , Jin Hanato and Yoshihito Fujita against three other dangerous attacking players against whom Shō Itō has to prove himself first.

National team career

In the years 2005 to 2006 in particular, the young center forward was a member of the junior team in his home country, which he represented at the U-19 Asian soccer championships and their qualifications. With the team, he mostly sat on the bench and made a commitment in the qualification phase, which one survived without any problems and thus qualified for the tournament in India the following year . At the Asian Championships, which were held from late October to mid-November 2006 in Calcutta and Bangalore , Itō was used as a substitute in two matches. Together with the juniors from North Korea, who were already in the same qualifying group with the Japanese, they came into the same group during the Asian Cup. Here, too, both teams made progress and only met again on November 11 in the final in Calcutta. There, the North Koreans only just finished the Japanese 3: 5 in extra time and celebrated their second title in the history of this football tournament. For Japan it was the sixth final defeat since the tournament was introduced in 1959; it has never been possible to emerge as the winner of the tournament.

successes

with Grenoble Foot
with Shimizu S-Pulse
with Japan's U-20s

Web links

Footnotes & individual references

  1. ↑ Mission data only known from the 2009/10 season
  2. ↑ Youth talent drain threatens J.League ( Memento from February 19, 2007 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on February 23, 2014
  3. ↑ Japan starlet set for Gunners ( Memento from September 29, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) (English), accessed on February 23, 2014
  4. ↑ SHO ITO À GRENOBLE (French), accessed on February 23, 2014
  5. ↑ GRENOBLE RECRUTE UMESAKI (French), accessed on February 23, 2014
  6. ↑ GF38 - Amiens SC (0: 1) (French), accessed on February 23, 2014
  7. ↑ RC Lens - GF38 (1: 1) (French), accessed February 23, 2014
  8. ↑ 伊藤 翔 選手 移 籍 加入 の お 知 ら せ (Japanese), accessed February 23, 2014
personal data
SURNAME Ito, Sho
ALTERNATIVE NAMES 伊藤 翔 (Japanese spelling)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Japanese soccer player
DATE OF BIRTH July 24, 1988
PLACE OF BIRTH Kasugai , Aichi Prefecture, Japan