(former name; Tomoe Sakai, 酒井與惠) 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 north ...

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 c ...

player. She played for Japan national team.

Club career

Kato was born in

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

on May 27, 1978. She played for

Nippon TV Beleza is a women's football team which plays in Japan's WE League. History The club was founded as named ''Yomiuri SC Ladies Beleza'' as women's club of Yomiuri SC (currently ''Tokyo Verdy'') by Yomiuri Shimbun in 1981.L.League The , commonly known as the , is a semi-professional women's association football league in Japan. The Nadeshiko League consists of two divisions that correspond to the second and third levels of the Japanese women's football pyramid respective ...

championship 8 times. She played 246 matches in

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

. She was selected MVP awards 2 times in

2001 The September 11 attacks against the United States by Al-Qaeda, which Casualties of the September 11 attacks, killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror, were a defining event of 2001. The United States led a Participants in ...

and

2002 File:2002 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 2002 Winter Olympics are held in Salt Lake City; Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and her daughter Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon die; East Timor gains East Timor independence, indepe ...

. She was also selected Best Eleven for 12 years in a row (

1996 File:1996 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: A Centennial Olympic Park bombing, bomb explodes at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta, set off by a radical Anti-abortion violence, anti-abortionist; The center fuel tank explodes on TWA Flight 8 ...

2007 File:2007 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Steve Jobs unveils Apple's first iPhone; TAM Airlines Flight 3054 overruns a runway and crashes into a gas station, killing almost 200 people; Former Pakistani Prime Minister of Pakistan, Pr ...

National team career

On June 8, 1997, when Kato was 19 years old, she debuted for Japan national team against

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

.Japan Football Association
/ref> She was a member of Japan for

1999 File:1999 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The funeral procession of King Hussein of Jordan in Amman; the 1999 İzmit earthquake kills over 17,000 people in Turkey; the Columbine High School massacre, one of the first major school shootin ...

2003 File:2003 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The crew of STS-107 perished when the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated during reentry into Earth's atmosphere; SARS became an epidemic in China, and was a precursor to SARS-CoV-2; A des ...

, 2007 World Cup,

2004 2004 was designated as an International Year of Rice by the United Nations, and the International Year to Commemorate the Struggle Against Slavery and its Abolition (by UNESCO). Events January * January 3 – Flash Airlines Flight 6 ...

and

2008 Summer Olympics The 2008 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXIX Olympiad () and also known as Beijing 2008 (), were an international multisport event held from 8 to 24 August 2008, in Beijing, China. A total of 10,942 athletes from 204 Na ...

. She played 114 games and scored 8 goals for Japan until 2008.

Personal life

Kato got married and changed her name to Tomoe Kato (加藤與惠) from Tomoe Sakai (酒井與惠) in November 2007.

National team statistics

International goals

References

External links

Tomoe Sakai
– FIFA competition record * * * * 1978 births Living people Tokyo Women's College of Physical Education alumni Association football people from Tokyo Japanese women's footballers Japan women's international footballers Nadeshiko League players Nippon TV Tokyo Verdy Beleza players 1999 FIFA Women's World Cup players 2003 FIFA Women's World Cup players 2007 FIFA Women's World Cup players Olympic footballers for Japan Footballers at the 2004 Summer Olympics Footballers at the 2008 Summer Olympics Asian Games medalists in football Footballers at the 1998 Asian Games Footballers at the 2002 Asian Games Footballers at the 2006 Asian Games Women's association football midfielders Asian Games silver medalists for Japan Asian Games bronze medalists for Japan FIFA Women's Century Club Medalists at the 1998 Asian Games Medalists at the 2002 Asian Games Medalists at the 2006 Asian Games Nadeshiko League MVPs {{Japan-footy-midfielder-1970s-stub