is a former

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the n ...

ese

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly ...

player.

Club career

Ota was educated at and played for

Shimizu Commercial High School was a co-educational commercial high school located in Shimizu-ku, Shizuoka, Japan. The school was founded in 1921 and was permanently closed on March 31st, 2013. It had a strong soccer program and won the All Japan High School Soccer Tournamen ...

and

Fukuoka University Fukuoka University is a private research university located in Fukuoka, Japan. The university has nine faculties with a total of around 20,000 students, 800 of whom are foreign. Its two campuses are in Nanakuma and Kitakyushu. Fukuoka Universit ...

. After graduating from the university in 2002, Ota joined

J2 League The or simply J2 is the second division of the and the second level of the Japanese association football league system. The top tier is represented by the J1 League. It (along with the rest of the J.League) is currently sponsored by Meiji Y ...

side

Avispa Fukuoka is a Japanese professional football club, currently competing in the J1 League. The team is located in Hakata, Fukuoka. "Avispa" means " wasp" in Spanish. They were originally called Fujieda Blux and based in Fujieda, Shizuoka before moving ...

. His first appearance in J2 League came on September 11, 2002, against Mito HollyHock. He scored his first professional goal on July 26, 2003, against

Albirex Niigata is a professional football club based in Niigata, Japan. Formed in 1955 as Niigata Eleven SC, it was renamed Albireo Niigata FC in 1995, and Albirex Niigata in 1997. From 2023, Albirex will be playing on the J1 League, coming back to the f ...

. In April 2004, he crashed into the goal post and damaged his

spleen The spleen is an organ found in almost all vertebrates. Similar in structure to a large lymph node, it acts primarily as a blood filter. The word spleen comes .

as he scored against Omiya Ardija. Because of this injury, he was sidelined for more than three months. Although he was instrumental in Avispa's promotion in the 2005 season by playing 22 games and scoring 2 goals, he was released from the club. He played the 2006 season with fellow J2 side

Thespa Kusatsu is a professional football (soccer) club based in Maebashi, Gunma Prefecture in Japan. The club plays in the J2 League, the second division of professional football in Japan. History The club was founded in 1995 in Kusatsu, one of the most we ...

. The

Minnesota Thunder Minnesota Thunder was an American professional soccer team based in Minnesota, United States. Founded in 1990, the team played in the USL First Division (USL-1), the second tier of the American Soccer Pyramid, until 2009. The team played its home ...

signed him in February 2007, but he returned to Japan with

V-Varen Nagasaki is a Japanese J2 League football club based in Nagasaki. The club was established in 1985 as Ariake SC till they merged with Kunimi FC in 2004 and adopted the present name in 2005. The club gained promotion into the J. League Division 2 in ...

in 2008.Minnesota Thunder Official Web Site
Thunder Signs 6-4 Japanese Forward Keisuke Ota
, article retrieved February 6, 2008. He retired from the game at the end of the 2008 season.

National team career

Ota represented Japan for the

2001 Summer Universiade The 2001 Summer Universiade, also known as the XXI Summer Universiade, was an international multi-sport event that took place in Beijing, China, between 22 August and 1 September. A total of 6,757 athletes from 165 nations took part in 12 spor ...

held in Beijing where the team won the title beating

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inva ...

in the final. He played 5 matches in the tournament.

Club statistics

References

External links

* 1979 births Living people Fukuoka University alumni Japanese footballers J2 League players Avispa Fukuoka players Thespakusatsu Gunma players V-Varen Nagasaki players USL First Division players Minnesota Thunder players Expatriate soccer players in the United States Men's association football forwards Japanese expatriate footballers Japanese expatriate sportspeople in the United States Association football people from Shizuoka (city) {{Japan-footy-forward-1970s-stub