Nishino, Akira

Throughout his football career, he played for the Hitachi club, which he joined after graduating from Waseda University in 1978 ^[1] . In 1982, the team took second place in the national championship. According to the results of the 1985/86 season, Nisino was included in the symbolic league team. He completed his playing career in 1990.

From 1977 to 1978 he played 12 matches for the national team of Japan , in which he scored 1 goal. Nisino's debut match was a meeting with the Israeli team on March 6, 1977. After that, he spent several more games as part of the qualification for the 1978 World Cup ^[2] .

After the end of his playing career, in 1990, Nishino became a Hitachi coach (later - Kashiva Reisol). Since 1991, he led the Japanese national team (under 20 years old) and the Japanese Olympic team (under 23 years old). In 1996, the Olympic team qualified and took part in the Olympic Games , for the first time in 28 years after 1968 , where Japan won bronze medals . In this tournament , the national team in the first match defeated Brazil , which was called the "miracle in Miami." But, despite another victory over Hungary , Japan lost to future champions - Nigerians and could not leave the group ^{[3] [1]} .

In 1997, Nishino returned to Kashiva Reisol and a year later became the team’s head coach. In 1999, under his leadership, the club won the League Cup ^[4] . In 1999 and 2000 , the club took third place in the J-League , for which Nisino was recognized as the best coach. But in July 2001 he was fired. In 2002, he signed a contract with Osaka Gamba and three years later led him to victory in the championship , for the first time in the club’s history, for which Nisino also received an award as the best coach. And in 2008, the team won the Asian Champions League and took third place in the Club World Championship . And Nisino was recognized as the AFC coach of the year. Gamba Osaka also won the League Cup in 2007 and 2008 and the Emperor’s Cup in 2009 ^[5] . In 2011, he resigned. In May of the following year, Nisino signed a contract with Wissel Kobe , where he replaced Masahiro Wada . But already in November he was dismissed ^[6] . In 2014, Nisino became the head coach of Nagoya Grampus and led the club until 2015 ^[7] .

In March 2016, Nishino was invited to the Japan Football Federation as technical director ^[8] . And on April 9, 2018, after the dismissal of Vahid Halilhodzhich , he led the Japanese team ^[9] . Nisino didn’t play in favor - before the start of the 2018 World Cup , 70 days remained, and there was no experience at all in such a responsible post. Nevertheless, Japan made a story at the tournament - the victory over Colombia was the first defeat of the South American federation team from the Asian team. Having played a draw with Senegal and losing to Poland , Japan nevertheless entered the playoffs of the tournament, which could not be done by any other Asian team in this championship. In the 1/8 finals, the Japanese lost to Belgium with a score of 2-3, although in the course of the matches they led in the score ^{[10] [1]} Initially, the contract with Nishino was signed for the duration of the World Cup, and after Japan left the tournament, July, he left his post ^[11] .

A year later, Nishino was appointed head coach of the national and Olympic (under 23 years old) Thailand national teams ^{[12] [13]} .

Team

As a trainer

  Kashiva Reisol

• League Cup Winner: 1999

  Gamba Osaka

• J-League Winner: 2005
• League Cup Winner: 2007
• Emperor Cup Winner: 2008, 2009
• Japanese Super Cup Winner: 2007
• Asian Champions League Winner: 2008

Personal

As a player

• The symbolic team of the Japanese Football League: 1985/86

As a trainer

• Coach of the Year in the J-League : 2000 , 2005
• Asian Football Confederation Coach of the Year: 2008

In the club

Team

Coaching Statistics

• and on the Transfermarkt website
• National Football Teams profile
• Japan National Football Team Database
• J-League coach profile