Keisuke Honda is AC Milan’s loss and Japan’s gain for 2015 Asian Cup

Honda will lead the charge in Australia after he finally clicked under his third different Serie A coach in a year, writes Ian Hawkey.

Japan’s Keisuke Honda, centre, is a big star from the region and his profile has grown since a move to AC Milan. Yomiuri Shimbun / AP Photos

A year almost to the day before the Asian Cup begins, with Japan’s Keisuke Honda among its undoubted stars, the same man was arriving at Milan’s San Siro Stadium to the red-carpet treatment.

His presentation as an AC Milan footballer, in the first transfer window of 2014, had been planned carefully, its details well rehearsed.

His move from CSKA Moscow to Italy was sealed many months earlier, so there was time for that.

The scheduling of the event was designed so live footage could be beamed to Tokyo at peak viewing times. Honda spoke to his audience in Japanese and in simple English.

He answered questions about fashion, about Serie A and about the pressures of his profession. And soon seasoned Milan-watchers noted that this introductory ceremony, in its grandeur and paraphernalia, had much in common with the show the club put on when they recruited David Beckham, on loan from the Los Angeles Galaxy, in the winter of 2009.

A big-screen serenade of the player’s eye-catching moments. Evident relish of the popularity the footballer enjoys among a fan base not exclusively made up of football fans.

Honda, an attacking midfielder, was handed the red-and-black No 10 jersey, and he said that wearing the mystical garment would not weigh heavily on his shoulders. “I am quite level-headed,” he said.

He moved into an apartment where Kaka was among his neighbours. And then a few days after the Serie A season resumed from its mid-season break, he found the furniture in his workplace was completely rearranged.

Honda, now 28, has had a peculiar 12 months, a first year as part of an elite European league that can be sharply divided into two halves.

The first period, which began with Milan dismissing coach Massimiliano Allegri shortly after he had given the Japanese his first minutes on the pitch, were largely disappointing and often perplexing.

“At first, they sent us Keisuke’s brother,” joked Adriano Galliani, the Milan vice president who oversaw his free transfer from Russia.

“But we sent him back and then got the real version.”

The Honda of Milan’s chaotic 2013/14 campaign scored once in 14 Serie A appearances and struggled to impose himself on matches as a novice coach, Clarence Seedorf, struggled to rescue a season and integrate several January additions to the staff.

There were times, as Milan’s bid to finish in the qualifying places for European competition flopped, when Honda must have wondered if swapping the Russian Premier League for mid-table Italy was really the step-up he had envisioned.

Come the summer, after a World Cup in which Honda’s class and incisiveness were only occasionally glimpsed as Japan exited at the group phase, he applied himself to the ideas of a third Milan coach in six months, another novice, Filippo Inzaghi.

They clicked almost immediately, Inzaghi beaming at “his professionalism and his dedication. It’s an example to all of us”.

These were important qualities to underline. Honda’s huge profile in Japan, and the interest on all aspects of his life, can give the impression of a dilettante: a sportsman who keeps more than half an eye on his image, his status as a fashion role model.

Inzaghi sees none of that, merely a hard worker, diligent tactically, ferocious in his fitness regimen, a perfectionist always seeking fresh variations on his direct free kicks.

Like Beckham, he has made those something of speciality, though he bends and arrows his missiles towards goal from his left foot, not his right.

In his first two months in charge of Milan, Inzaghi found no more reliable alibi than his No 10.

From his opening seven league games of 2014/15, Honda struck six goals and set up two more. Cutting in from an advanced position on the right of Milan’s attack, he was devastating and far from predictable. His strikes included goals with his right foot and his stronger left, from a header, and naturally there was a direct free kick among them.

His headline-making has dipped a bit since October, but his importance to Milan has not.

“He spoiled us a bit with all those goals,” Inzaghi said. “But even when he’s not scoring, he is always contributing.”

If Japan stay as long as they hope in the Asian Cup, he will be missed at the San Siro.

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