is a Japanese

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. Ando currently plays club football for 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 ...

. She previously played for the Japan national team before retiring in 2015.

Club career

Ando was born in

Utsunomiya is the prefectural capital city of Tochigi Prefecture in the northern Kantō region of Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 519,223, and a population density of . The total area of the city is . Utsunomiya is famous for its '' gyoza' ...

on 9 July 1982. In 2002, when she was a

University of Tsukuba is a public university, public research university located in Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture, Ibaraki, Japan. It is a top 10 Designated National University, and was ranked Type A by the Japanese government as part of the Top Global University Pro ...

student, she left university club and joined Saitama Reinas FC (later ''Urawa Reds''). In 2002 season, she scored 10 goals and she was selected Young Player Awards. She became top scorer and she was selected MVP awards in

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 ...

and

2009 File:2009 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The vertical stabilizer of Air France Flight 447 is pulled out from the Atlantic Ocean; Barack Obama becomes the first African American to become President of the United States; Protests ...

. She was also selected Best Eleven 6 times. From 2010, she played for German

Bundesliga The Bundesliga (; ), sometimes referred to as the Fußball-Bundesliga () or 1. Bundesliga (), is a professional association football league in Germany. At the top of the German football league system, the Bundesliga is Germany's primary footb ...

club

Duisburg Duisburg () is a city in the Ruhr metropolitan area of the western German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Lying on the confluence of the Rhine and the Ruhr rivers in the center of the Rhine-Ruhr Region, Duisburg is the 5th largest city in ...

Frankfurt Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , " Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on it ...

and

Essen Essen (; Latin: ''Assindia'') is the central and, after Dortmund, second-largest city of the Ruhr, the largest urban area in Germany. Its population of makes it the fourth-largest city of North Rhine-Westphalia after Cologne, Düsseldorf and Do ...

. At

, she won UEFA Women's Champions League in 2014–15 season. In June 2017, she returned to Japan and joined

National team career

In June 1999, when Ando was 16 years old, she was selected for Japan national team for the

1999 FIFA Women's World Cup The 1999 FIFA Women's World Cup was the third edition of the FIFA Women's World Cup, the world championship for women's national soccer teams. It was hosted as well as won by the United States and took place from June 19 to July 10, 1999, at ...

. At this competition, on 26 June, she debuted against

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of ...

. She played in the

World Cup A world cup is a global sporting competition in which the participant entities – usually international teams or individuals representing their countries – compete for the title of world champion. The event most associated with the concept i ...

four times and in the

Summer Olympics The Summer Olympic Games (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques d'été), also known as the Games of the Olympiad, and often referred to as the Summer Olympics, is a major international multi-sport event normally held once every four years. The ina ...

three times. She was a member of the team that defeated the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

in a

penalty shootout The penalty shootout is a method of determining a winner in sports matches that would have otherwise been drawn or tied. The rules for penalty shootouts vary between sports and even different competitions; however, the usual form is similar to pe ...

in the

finals Final, Finals or The Final may refer to: *Final (competition), the last or championship round of a sporting competition, match, game, or other contest which decides a winner for an event ** Another term for playoffs, describing a sequence of cont ...

to win the 2011 World Cup; Ando started the final. She was also part of the Japanese team which won the silver medal at the

2012 Summer Olympics The 2012 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXX Olympiad and also known as London 2012) was an international multi-sport event held from 27 July to 12 August 2012 in London, England, United Kingdom. The first event, th ...

and second place at the 2015 World Cup. At the 2015 World Cup, in the first match against

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

, she got a

penalty kick A penalty shot or penalty kick is a play used in several sports whereby a goal is attempted during untimed play. Depending on the sport, when a player commits certain types of penalties, the opposition is awarded a penalty shot or kick attempt. ...

, but she fractured her left ankle at that moment. This match was her last as part of the Japan national team. She played 126 games and scored 19 goals for Japan by 2015.

Education

Ando graduated from Utsunomiya Women's High School. She earned a

PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * '' Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic * Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group ** Ph.D. (Ph.D. al ...

in Physical Education, Health and Sport Sciences from

in May 2018.

Club statistics

¹Includes

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 competi ...

National team statistics

Japan Football Association
/ref>List of match i

at Japan Football Association

International goals

Honors

Club

;Urawa Reds Ladies * L.League: Winner

;FCR 2001 Duisburg *

DFB-Pokal The DFB-Pokal ( is a German knockout football cup competition held annually by the German Football Association (DFB). Sixty-four teams participate in the competition, including all clubs from the Bundesliga and the 2. Bundesliga. It is considered ...

: Winner 2009–10 ;Frankfurt *

: Winner 2013–14 * UEFA Women's Champions League: Winner 2014–15

National team

FIFA Women's World Cup The FIFA Women's World Cup is an international association football competition contested by the senior women's national teams of the members of Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the sport's international governing bod ...

: Winner

2011 File:2011 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: a protester partaking in Occupy Wall Street heralds the beginning of the Occupy movement; protests against Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who was killed that October; a young man celebrates ...

Individual

* L.League :MVP:

:Top Scorers:

:Best Eleven (6):

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 ...

2005 File:2005 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf of Mexico; the Funeral of Pope John Paul II is held in Vatican City; " Me at the zoo", the first video ever to be uploaded to YouTube; Eris was discover ...

2007 File:2007 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Steve Jobs unveils Apple Inc., Apple's first iPhone (1st generation), iPhone; TAM Airlines Flight 3054 overruns a runway and crashes into a gas station, killing almost 200 people; Former Pakis ...

2008 File:2008 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Lehman Brothers went bankrupt following the Subprime mortgage crisis; Cyclone Nargis killed more than 138,000 in Myanmar; A scene from the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing; ...

:Best Young Player:

References

External links

* * * *
Japan Football Association
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ando, Kozue 1982 births Living people University of Tsukuba alumni Association football people from Tochigi Prefecture Japanese women's footballers Japan women's international footballers Nadeshiko League players Urawa Red Diamonds Ladies players Japanese expatriates in Germany Expatriate women's footballers in Germany FCR 2001 Duisburg players 1. FFC Frankfurt players 1999 FIFA Women's World Cup players 2007 FIFA Women's World Cup players 2011 FIFA Women's World Cup players 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup players FIFA Women's World Cup-winning players Olympic footballers of Japan Olympic silver medalists for Japan Olympic medalists in football Medalists at the 2012 Summer Olympics Footballers at the 2004 Summer Olympics Footballers at the 2008 Summer Olympics Footballers at the 2012 Summer Olympics Asian Games medalists in football Footballers at the 2006 Asian Games FIFA Century Club People from Utsunomiya, Tochigi Asian Games silver medalists for Japan Women's association football forwards Medalists at the 2006 Asian Games Nadeshiko League MVPs