Takahiro Yamada

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For the bass player of Asian Kung Fu Generation, please see that band's article.

Personal information
Takahiro Yamada
Full name	Takahiro Yamada
Date of birth	April 29, 1972 (1972-04-29) (age 36)
Place of birth	Osaka, Japan
Height	1.75 m (5 ft 9 in)
Playing position	Midfielder
Youth clubs
1989-1991	Shimizu Commercial High School
Senior clubs¹
Years	Club	App (Gls)*
1990-1997 1998 1999 2000-2003	Nissan Motors / Yokohama Marinos Kyoto Purple Sanga Verdy Kawasaki Vegalta Sendai	159 (18) 29 (1) 27 (1) 65 (3)
National team
1994	Japan	1 (0)
¹ Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only. * Appearances (Goals)

Takahiro Yamada (山田隆裕, Takahiro Yamada^?, born April 29, 1972 in Osaka, Japan) is a retired Japanese football (soccer) player. He was a skillful attacking midfielder.

1 Career
2 Clubs
3 Honors and awards
- 3.1 Team honours

[edit] Career

Yamada was educated at and played for Shimizu Commercial High School. At the high school, he won the national high school championship and the national youth championship with his team mates including Hiroshi Nanami, Go Oiwa and Shigeyoshi Mochizuki. Some scouts regarded him as the No. 1 high school player of his age.

After graduating in 1990, he joined Japan Soccer League side Nissan Motor F.C. where his powerful dribbling helped him quickly establish himself as a regular. When Japan's first-ever professional league J. League started in 1993, Nissan F.C. was transformed to Yokohama Marinos for whom he continued to play.

He moved to Kyoto Purple Sanga in 1998, and then to Verdy Kawasaki in 1999. He announced the retirement from the game after the 1999 season at the age of 29. However, Hidehiko Shimizu, the manager of J. League Division 2 side Vegalta Sendai, who had also managed Yamada at Yokohama Marinos, successfully persuaded him to come out of the retirement and help Sendai to gain the promotion to Division 1. Yamada played for Sendai for 3 years from June 2000 to June 2003 before finally hanging up his boots. He was the leader and the influential player for Sendai who were promoted to Division 1 for the 2002 season.

He was capped once for the Japanese national team when he played in a friendly against Australia on September 27, 1994 at the Tokyo National Olympic Stadium. He was a member of the Japan team that won the 1992 AFC Asian Cup but did not play in the tournament.

After retiring from the game, he started his own business, a franchise chain of bakeries specialising in Melon buns, in Sendai.