is a Japanese professional

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby le ...

who plays as a defender for Italian

Serie A The Serie A (), also called Serie A TIM for national sponsorship with TIM, is a professional league competition for football clubs located at the top of the Italian football league system and the winner is awarded the Scudetto and the Coppa ...

club

A.S. Roma ' (''Rome Sport Association''), commonly referred to as Roma (), is a professional football club based in Rome, Italy. Founded by a merger in 1927, Roma has participated in the top tier of Italian football for all of its existence, except for ...

and the Japan national team.

Early life

Minami was born in

Saitama Prefecture is a landlocked prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Saitama Prefecture has a population of 7,338,536 (1 January 2020) and has a geographic area of 3,797 km2 (1,466 sq mi). Saitama Prefecture borders Tochigi Prefecture ...

on 7 December 1998. She attended high school in Saitama Prefectural Nanryō High School. She graduated from University of Tsukuba Physical Education College in 2021. She began her youth career when she joined the junior youth team of Urawa Red Diamonds Ladies.

Club career

Urawa Reds

She was promoted to

Nadeshiko League The , commonly known as the , is a semi-professional women's association football Sports league, league in Japan. The Nadeshiko League consists of two divisions that correspond to the second and third levels of the Japanese association football ...

club Urawa Reds from the youth team in 2017.

AS Roma

On 24 July 2022, Minami signed a two-year contract with Italian

club

Roma Roma or ROMA may refer to: Places Australia * Roma, Queensland, a town ** Roma Airport ** Roma Courthouse ** Electoral district of Roma, defunct ** Town of Roma, defunct town, now part of the Maranoa Regional Council *Roma Street, Brisbane, a ...

. She made her debut for the club on 19 August 2022 in a 3–1

UEFA Champions League The UEFA Champions League (abbreviated as UCL, or sometimes, UEFA CL) is an annual club football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and contested by top-division European clubs, deciding the competit ...

win against Glasgow City. On 10 September 2022, she scored her first goal for the club in a Serie A match against AC Milan. Later in the same month, she scored again for the club in a 4–1 win against

Sparta Praha ) but refer to Spartans as "''Rudí''" ( en, The Dark Reds/The Maroons).'' Letenští'' , ground = Generali Česká pojišťovna Arena , capacity = 19,416 , clubname = Sparta Prague , image = Sparta Praha logo.png , image_size = 160px , fu ...

in the UEFA Champions League. On 5 November, Minami won her first silverware with Roma as they beaten Juventus in a penalty shootout in the

2022 Supercoppa Italiana The 2022 Supercoppa Italiana (branded as the EA Sports Supercup for sponsorship reasons) will be the 35th edition of the Supercoppa Italiana, the Italian football super cup. It will be played between Milan, winners of the 2021–22 Serie A champi ...

. On 29 April 2023, she helped Roma clinched the

2022–23 Serie A The 2022–23 Serie A (known as the Serie A TIM for sponsorship reasons) is the 121st season of top-tier Italian football, the 91st in a round-robin tournament, and the 13th since its organization under an own league committee, the Lega Serie A. ...

title in a 2–1 win against

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, their first league title in club history.

International career

Youth

In 2014, Minami was selected for the Japan U-17 national team for the 2014 U-17 World Cup. She played one game against

Paraguay Paraguay (; ), officially the Republic of Paraguay ( es, República del Paraguay, links=no; gn, Tavakuairetã Paraguái, links=si), is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to th ...

in the group stage. Japan went on to win the championship. In 2018, Minami was selected for the Japan U-20 national team for the 2018 U-20 World Cup. She played all six matches as center-back and team captain. Japan won the championship and Minami received the Bronze Ball award.

Senior

In February 2019, Minami was selected for the Japan national team for the SheBelieves Cup. At this tournament, on 2 March, she debuted as center back-against

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

. Minami was selected as part of the 22 players squad for the

2020 Summer Olympics The , officially the and also known as , was an international multi-sport event held from 23 July to 8 August 2021 in Tokyo, Japan, with some preliminary events that began on 21 July. Tokyo was selected as the host city during the ...

held in Japan in 2021. She started all 3 group matches for Japan. On 13 June 2023, she was included in the 23-player squad for the

FIFA Women's World Cup 2023 The 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup is scheduled to be the ninth edition of the FIFA Women's World Cup competition, the quadrennial international women's football championship contested by the women's national association football teams organised ...

Career statistics

Club

International

:''Scores and results list Japan's goal tally first, score column indicates score after each Minami goal.''

Honours

Urawa Reds *

2020 2020 was heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to global Social impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, social and Economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, economic disruption, mass cancellations and postponements of events, COVID- ...

* Empress's Cup:

2021 File:2021 collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: the James Webb Space Telescope was launched in 2021; Protesters in Yangon, Myanmar following the 2021 Myanmar coup d'état, coup d'état; A civil demonstration against the October–November 2021 ...

* Empress's Cup runner-up:

2019 File:2019 collage v1.png, From top left, clockwise: Hong Kong protests turn to widespread riots and civil disobedience; House of Representatives votes to adopt articles of impeachment against Donald Trump; CRISPR gene editing first used to experim ...

* Nadeshiko League Cup runner-up:

2017 File:2017 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The War Against ISIS at the Battle of Mosul (2016-2017); aftermath of the Manchester Arena bombing; The Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017 ("Great American Eclipse"); North Korea tests a ser ...

AS Roma * Serie A:

2022–23 The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen b ...

Supercoppa Italiana The Supercoppa Italiana ( en, Italian Super Cup) is an annual football match contested by the winners of the Serie A and the Coppa Italia in the previous season. If the same team wins both the Serie A and Coppa Italia titles in the previous seaso ...

2022 File:2022 collage V1.png, Clockwise, from top left: Road junction at Yamato-Saidaiji Station several hours after the assassination of Shinzo Abe; 2022 Sri Lankan protests, Anti-government protest in Sri Lanka in front of the Presidential Secretari ...

Japan U17 * AFC U-16 Women's Championship:

2013 File:2013 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: Edward Snowden becomes internationally famous for leaking classified NSA wiretapping information; Typhoon Haiyan kills over 6,000 in the Philippines and Southeast Asia; The Dhaka garment fact ...

* FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup:

2014 File:2014 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Stocking up supplies and personal protective equipment (PPE) for the Western African Ebola virus epidemic; Citizens examining the ruins after the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping; Bundles of wat ...

Japan U20 * AFC U-20 Women's Asian Championship:

* FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup:

2018 File:2018 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2018 Winter Olympics opening ceremony in PyeongChang, South Korea; Protests erupt following the Assassination of Jamal Khashoggi; March for Our Lives protests take place across the United ...

Japan * EAFF E-1 Football Championship:

Individual * EAFF E-1 Football Championship MVP: 2019 * Nadeshiko League/WE League Best Eleven: 2019, 2020, 2021-2022 ;Individual * Serie A Women's Team of the Year:

References

External links

Japan Football Association
* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Minami, Moeka 1998 births Living people Association football people from Saitama Prefecture Japanese women's footballers Women's association football central defenders Urawa Red Diamonds Ladies players AS Roma (women) players Nadeshiko League players Serie A (women's football) players Japan women's international footballers 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup players Footballers at the 2020 Summer Olympics Olympic footballers for Japan Japanese expatriate women's footballers Expatriate women's footballers in Italy Japanese expatriate sportspeople in Italy 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup players