is a former Japanese football player. He played for Japan national team. He was a forward but sometimes played in the midfield.

Club career

After studying at and playing for Sagami Institute of Technology High School and

Chuo University , commonly referred to as or , is a private flagship research university in Tokyo, Japan. Founded in 1885 as Igirisu Hōritsu Gakkō (the English Law School), Chuo is one of the oldest and most prestigious institutions in the country. The univer ...

, Fukuda joined

Mitsubishi Motors is a Japanese multinational automobile manufacturer headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan.Japan Soccer League , or JSL, was the top flight association football league in Japan between 1965 and 1992, and was the precursor to the current professional league, the J.League. JSL was the second national league of a team sport in Japan after the professional ...

Division 2. In his rookie season, he scored 36 goals and helped the club to gain the promotion to Division 1. When Japan's first-ever professional league J1 League started in the early 1990s, Mitsubishi was transferred to the

Urawa Reds , colloquially Urawa Reds (浦和レッズ), also known as Mitsubishi Urawa Football Club from April 1992 to January 1996, is a professional football club in the city of Saitama, part of the Greater Tokyo Area in Japan. The club plays in the J ...

. He turned professional and continued to play for the club. He scored his first J1 League goal on June 9, 1993 against the Kashima Antlers at Kashima Soccer Stadium. All the Urawa players except the goalkeeper flocked around Fukuda to celebrate the goal. While the celebration was prolonged, the referee signaled the restart and Kashima's Hisashi Kurosaki equalized immediately. In the 1995 season, Fukuda scored 32 goals, which made him the League's top scorer and a member of the

J.League Best XI The J.League Best XI is an acknowledgement of the best eleven players in J.League. J1 League (1993–present) Multiple appearances Appearances by club Appearances by country * Only in two occasions there was a full-Japanese Best XI (20 ...

. Urawa was fighting the relegation battle in the 1998 season. In order to stay up, Urawa needed to win the last match in the normal 90 minutes. The J1 League employed extra time with the

golden goal The golden goal or golden point is a rule used in association football, lacrosse, field hockey, and ice hockey to decide the winner of a match (typically a knock-out match) in which scores are equal at the end of normal time. It is a type of sud ...

rule even for a league match at that time, and 2 points were awarded for an extra win while a regulation win earned 3 points. Urawa failed to win in the 90 minutes and the players fielded for the extra time knowing that they had already been relegated. Fukuda scored the golden goal, which fans now remember as the "saddest golden goal in the world." He retired from the game after the 2002 season. He played his senior club football with one club. He was the symbolic player of Urawa Red Diamonds and the fans refer to him as Mr. Reds. At the beginning of 2003, the

testimonial match A testimonial match or testimonial game, often referred to simply as a testimonial, is a practice in some sports, particularly in association football in the United Kingdom and South America, where a club has a match to honour a player for servic ...

for Fukuda was held at

Saitama Stadium , often called or simply , is a football stadium located in Midori-ku, Saitama, Saitama Prefecture, Japan. Currently, J1 League club Urawa Red Diamonds use this stadium for home games. It is the largest football-specific stadium in Japan an ...

where more than 50,000 supporters attended to bid farewell.

National team career

Fukuda was capped 45 times and scored 9 goals for the Japanese national team between 1990 and 1995.Japan National Football Team Database
/ref> His first international appearance came on July 27, 1990 in a

Dynasty Cup Dynasty Cup was an East Asian international association football tournament. The tournament was held every 2 or 3 years. It was hosted by Beijing in 1990 and 1992, Hong Kong in 1995, Yokohama and Tokyo in 1998. In 2002 the East Asian Football F ...

match against

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korean Peninsula and sharing a land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed by the Yellow Sea, while its eas ...

Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...

. He scored his first goal for his country on August 24, 1992 in another Dynasty Cup match against China in

. He was a member of the Japan team that won the 1992 Asian Cup and he played 4 games and scored 1 goal in the semi-final against China. Under national coach

Hans Ooft Marius Johan ("Hans") Ooft (born 1947) is a Dutch former football player and manager who became the first foreigner to head the Japanese football team. Under Ooft, Japan won the Asian Championship for the first time in 1992 but was fired a yea ...

, Japan reached the

1994 World Cup qualification File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which Sinking of the MS Estonia, sank in ...

for the

1994 World Cup The 1994 FIFA World Cup was the 15th FIFA World Cup, the world championship for men's national soccer teams. It was hosted by the United States and took place from June 17 to July 17, 1994, at nine venues across the country. The United States w ...

. He was on the pitch, after replacing

Kenta Hasegawa is a former Japanese football player and manager. He is the current head coach J1 League club of Nagoya Grampus. He played for the Japan national team. Club career Hasegawa was educated at and played for Shimizu Higashi High School. He won ...

in the 59th minute, when Japan's hope to play in the finals in the USA was dashed by an injury-time Iraqi equaliser in the last qualifier, the match that the Japanese fans now refer to as the Agony of Doha.

After retirement

He works as a football commentator and columnist for various programs and magazines. He also acquired the S-Class Coaching license that was a prerequisite to manage a J.League club in 2007. He became an assistant coach at Urawa in 2008 and he resigned in 2010.

Club statistics

National team statistics

Honors and awards

Individual honors

* J.League Top Scorer: 1995 *

: 1995 * AFC Player of the Month: 1995 *

Urawa Red Diamonds , colloquially Urawa Reds (浦和レッズ), also known as Mitsubishi Urawa Football Club from April 1992 to January 1996, is a professional football club in the city of Saitama, part of the Greater Tokyo Area in Japan. The club plays in the J ...

Top Scorer: 152

Team honors

* 1992 Asian Cup (Champions)

References

External links

* *
Japan National Football Team Database
*
Fukuda Masahiro Official Website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fukuda, Masahiro 1966 births Living people Chuo University alumni Association football people from Kanagawa Prefecture Japanese footballers Japan international footballers Japan Soccer League players J1 League players J2 League players Urawa Red Diamonds players 1992 AFC Asian Cup players 1995 King Fahd Cup players AFC Asian Cup-winning players Footballers at the 1990 Asian Games Association football forwards Asian Games competitors for Japan