By David Owen
February 25 - The Japan 2018-2-22 World Cup bid has added three more players to its team of ambassadors.
Masashi Nakayama (pictured), Toshiya Fujita and Tsuneyasu Miyamoto are among the most prominent Japanese footballers of recent times.
Nakayama, in 1998, scored his country’s first-ever World Cup goal; Fujita was a key member of the national team between 1999 and 2005; Miyamoto captained the side at the last World Cup in Germany in 2006.
The trio join a bid ambassadors line-up that already includes the likes of Dragan Stojkovic, the former Yugoslavian international and Olympic bronze medallist, Guido Buchwald, the World Cup-winning former German defender, and ex-Japan national team managers Philippe Troussier and Zico.
Nakayama said: “I hope we can get the message out that a tournament held in Japan will be something very special indeed, and that we will make a great job of it.”
Japan is widely seen as an outsider in the race, mainly because it co-hosted the tournament with South Korea as recently as 2002.
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