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.

Playing career

Kitajima was born in Joso on October 29, 1975. Through the Chinese club Guangdong Hongyuan, he joined the

Japan Football League The also known as simply the JFL is the 4th tier of the Japanese association football league system, positioned beneath the three divisions of the J.League. The league features fully professional teams that hold J.League associate membership a ...

(JFL) club Oita Trinity in 1997. However he did not play in many matches. In 1998, he moved to the JFL club

Mito HollyHock is a Japanese professional football (soccer) club, currently playing in the J2 League. The team's hometown is located in Mito, Ibaraki Prefecture. Its nickname "HollyHock" derives from the family crest of the Tokugawa clan who governed from Mit ...

based in his local

Ibaraki Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Ibaraki Prefecture has a population of 2,871,199 (1 June 2019) and has a geographic area of . Ibaraki Prefecture borders Fukushima Prefecture to the north, ...

. However he did not play in any matches. In 1999, he moved to the newly promoted J2 League club,

Ventforet Kofu is a Japanese football club from Kōfu in Yamanashi Prefecture. The team currently competes in the J2 League and play their home games in JIT Recycle Ink Stadium, located in Kōfu. The word "Ventforet" is a compound formed from two French ...

on loan. However he did not play much. In 2000, he returned to Mito HollyHock, which had just been promoted to J2. He became a regular player as a defensive midfielder and played often. In 2006, he moved to the J2 club

Shonan Bellmare is a Japanese professional football club based in Hiratsuka, in the west of Kanagawa Prefecture, part of the Greater Tokyo Area. The club plays in the J1 League, which is the top tier of football in the country. Their home stadium is Hiratsuka ...

. He played often until 2007. However his opportunity to play decreased in 2008 and he retired at the end of the 2008 season.

Club statistics

References

External links

* 1975 births Living people Association football people from Ibaraki Prefecture Japanese footballers J2 League players Japan Football League (1992–1998) players Oita Trinita players Mito HollyHock players Ventforet Kofu players Shonan Bellmare players Japanese expatriate sportspeople in China Expatriate footballers in China Association football midfielders {{Japan-footy-midfielder-1970s-stub