Daisuke Sakata

Sakata was born in Yokohama on January 16, 1983. He first played for Yokohama Flügels youth team but became a Yokohama F. Marinos youth player when both teams merged in 1999. He was promoted to the top team in 2001. He became a regular player from 2003. The club won the champions in 2003 and 2004 J1 League. He joined Super League Greece side Aris Thessaloniki in 2011 after ten years at Yokohama F. Marinos but only stayed for a short time before returning to FC Tokyo for the 2nd half of the season. In January 2012 it was announced he had signed for Avispa Fukuoka in J2 League. Avispa won the 3rd place in 2015 J2 League and was promoted to J1 League. However Avispa finished at the bottom place in 2016 J1 League and was relegated to J2 in a year. He opted to retire end of 2017 season.

Sakata was a member of the Japan U-20 national team for the 2002 AFC Youth Championship. The team finished runners-up and was qualified for the 2003 World Youth Championship. At the World Youth Championship, he scored 4 goals in the tournament including against South Korea at knockout stage and became one of the top scorers. The team exited at the quarter final stage after beaten by Brazil. On August 9, 2006, he debuted for the Japan national team under new manager Ivica Osim against Trinidad and Tobago which is Japan's first match after the 2006 World Cup.

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• Daisuke Sakata at Olympedia
• Daisuke Sakata at FIFA
• Daisuke Sakata at J.League (player) (in Japanese)
• Daisuke Sakata at National Football Teams.com
• Daisuke Sakata at Soccerway.com
• Daisuke Sakata at FootballDatabase.eu
• Daisuke Sakata at WorldFootball.net
• Daisuke Sakata at Transfermarkt (player)
• Daisuke Sakata at ESPN FC