Shinji Okazaki: Happy retirement to a true Leicester City legend
Somewhere in the midst of a Friday night meltdown in Yorkshire and a glorious Tuesday night on the south coast, news came through that a genuine Leicester City legend was hanging up his boots. Becky Taylor pays tribute to a man who always, always, gave 100% for the shirt and helped the club achieve something that seemed impossible.
Shinji Okazaki, happy retirement to the best smile in football!
Looking at things objectively, a striker who scored 19 goals in 137 games doesn't strike you as a player who would be referred to as a club legend, but I think few would argue against him having that title.
For some players, their impact can be told by stats alone, but for Shinji it's so much more than that. He brought a positive energy like no other, on and off the pitch.
Genuine question: is there a more likeable player to have ever played for Leicester?
He might not be the first name that neutral fans think of from the title-winning squad of 2015/16 but he was an unsung hero. He didn't need to score many goals. Instead, his relentless energy and link-up paved the way for the big boys, Jamie Vardy and Riyad Mahrez, to take the headlines.
Shinji's press epitomised that 2015/16 side and the energy at the games. But his impact went beyond that, he went on to score in the Champions League and in the following seasons still brought that same vibrancy that we all loved.
I relived all 14 of his Premier League goals on YouTube to reminisce. My favourite of all is one against Newcastle. No, not the impressive bicycle kick, but a goal of complete comedy and the ultimate 'Shinji goal'.
After the goalkeeper’s save, the ball is bouncing almost on the goal line, Shinji misjudges the jump and misses the ball, it bounces up, hits him in the face, drops down and still doesn’t go in, before he finally scurries it over the line at the third attempt. Iconic.
There can't be many other players where 80%+ of their goals have been from no further than two yards out. Rewatching the goals reminded me how good he was at the near post run and simply following up his own or a team mate’s shots.
My immediate reaction to Shinji scoring was excitement to see the photo gallery and social media posts of his smiling face. Nothing could beat it.
As soon as Shinji was named on the team sheet, my friends and I would put in our shouts for the 'Shinji floor count' game. It was quite simple, just guess how many times he would end up on the floor. There were some very high counts!
This is not a time to consider or reference any downsides to his play, though. This is an opportunity to simply rejoice that we got to enjoy watching a great human being help our team to give us some of the most ridiculous memories a football fan could imagine.
Shinji retweeting and sharing posts from his times at Leicester never fails to make me smile. It's always nice to see ex-players do stuff like this. For some reason I get extra warm fuzzy feelings when it comes from him.
I was lucky enough to give him a 'good luck and thank you' on the final day of the 2018/19 season as I joined the Birch's run. Everyone was asking me how the run was and I didn't shut up about seeing off Shinji and Simmo.
Shinji: thanks for the memories, thanks for reminding everyone smiling is infectious (especially yours) and enjoy retirement. 🦊💙
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