One-hit wonders. A light in a strange career, which wasn’t made of sparks and constant success. A sudden corner of attention in an otherwise normal trajectory. There are seasons or years like these, with players capable of rising to the occasion when it’s needed the most. Just think of sudden protagonists, who made the front cover for a certain period, without repeating themselves after that season.
“Lost Treasures” is a column that featured a certain number of episodes until now, all talking about these kinds of players in the history of J. League. To pick whom to feature in this column, we looked at all the Best XIs composed by the J. League committee at the end of every season and chose four players who made an enormous leap, just to rarely or not repeat themselves in the successive seasons.
Another specific detail: we picked just J. Leaguers, who enjoyed most of their career in the Japanese championship, albeit there have been two exceptions. It’s been some time since the last piece in this column. We enjoyed a trip to Memory Lane with Yojiro Takahagi, whose sparkle didn’t last forever, but he really embraced the no. 10 mentality and guided Sanfrecce Hiroshima to three J1 titles in four years with his class.
For this new episode, we go to Tokyo, where football hasn’t brought the joy a capital city like this should have. Not at least from the 90s, when Verdy Kawasaki dominated the league. Then FC Tokyo took over (before Machida Zelvia joined the party) and there was a man who was the symbol of the club’s rise to the top: Naohiro Ishikawa, who could have been so much more if injuries didn’t impact his profile.
The Beginnings
Actually, Ishikawa isn’t even born in Tokyo, but rather in the Kanagawa Prefecture, and he started playing soccer at age five, in an era where the J.League didn’t even exist. He had the chance of meeting a few future J.Leaguers along the way – Teruyuki Moniwa and Tatsuya Suzuki are two examples –, before joining the youth ranks of Yokohama Marinos right after enrolling for high school. It was the mid-90s and Ishikawa watched the opening game of 1993 from the stands, but it wasn’t all smooth sailing.
Ishikawa wasn’t indeed growing as fast as he should have been, especially from the physical side. And when he did, the sudden growth ruined his balance. Moreover, in his position, Masahiro Ohashi was a favorite in the youth ranks, even debuting in the 1995 season. So back-then head coach Yasuhiro Higuchi, who was managing the future Marinos, decided to turn Ishikawa into a right-winger rather than a no. 10.
Someone told him at the time: “You’ll never become a professional player”. But Ishikawa wanted to show that those people were wrong, and when his growth finally adjusted, it worked: despite Marinos absorbing Yokohama Flügels in 1999, and competition intensifying in the youth ranks, Ishikawa’s performances in his third year of high school were enough to grant him some attention from the higher-ups. This brought finally a professional contract in 2000.
The next step? The debut on April 1st, 2000, by coming in for two minutes in an away game against Kashima Antlers. Just three matches in 2000, 15 more in 2001 – including the first goal as a pro on March 17th, 2001 against Gamba Osaka. In the end, though, the club wasn’t stable enough to give him minutes, and Ishikawa was one of the first youngsters to join without attending university. Sebastião Lazaroni didn’t see him as a resource, so Ishikawa asked for a loan and some playing time. Little did he know that his loan would turn into his whole career.
The Blossoming
Although Sanfrecce Hiroshima were a possibility, FC Tokyo signed the young winger on loan. Ishikawa was convinced by Hiromi Hara, who wanted to play the kid right away. Unusually, FC Tokyo signed him in April 2002, when the season already started. It didn’t matter – in his first match in the J.League Cup, he provided immediately an assist against Shimizu S-Pulse. FC Tokyo gave him the minutes Ishikawa never saw in Yokohama, and so the loan turned into a permanent transfer in August 2003.
It was just the beginning. In 2003, Ishikawa played for the first time a full season as a starter – ending up with 29 games and five goals, which earned him as well the first of six caps for the national team. He also featured in the U-23 for the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, and in 2004 he lifted his first trophy with FC Tokyo, winning the J.League Cup. He could have even left for Europe, since Treviso – a newly-promoted Italian side to Serie A – wanted him to sign, but Ishikawa decided in the end to stay in Japan and continue his journey with FC Tokyo.
But the best was yet to come. Despite a tough ACL injury, Ishikawa became a cult figure for FC Tokyo fans and a pillar of the club. In 2009, under head coach Hiroshi Jofuku, Ishikawa had the best season of his life: 15 goals in just 24 matches, an insane pace (including a hat-trick against Omiya Ardija on Golden Week), which prompted a place for him in the Best XI of that season. Furthermore, this run triggered so many more things.
FC Tokyo won the J.League Cup for a second time (against Kawasaki Frontale, of all opponents!) and ended fifth on the table; Japan called him up again, with head coach Takeshi Okada even thinking of him as a “trump card” for the 2010 FIFA World Cup; and most of all, European clubs were again on the watch, with some Bundesliga outlets monitoring Ishikawa’s progress – including Borussia Dortmund (who knows how history would have looked like if Ishikawa joined BEFORE Kagawa in yellow and black).
The End
Ishikawa didn’t get a European call or a spot for South Africa in 2010, but that didn’t mean that his career was very relevant. In 2010, he was just 29 and he had to go through the relegation of FC Tokyo to J2, just when he became vice-captain of the team. He contributed to the rise back to the top – winning a strange double, the J2 League and the Emperor’s Cup. He also rejoined Japan for a friendly against Serbia in February 2012, with head coach Alberto Zaccheroni quoting his speed and unpredictability as the factors for that decision.
Unfortunately, from 2013, age and injuries caught up to Ishikawa, limiting his usage and his well-renowned speed to blossom. A herniated disc in his lumbar spine in 2014, another ACL injury in 2015 – it was too much for his body, especially at 34 years old. He was able to come back in September 2016, playing for FC Tokyo U-23 in the J3 League. However, his condition didn’t improve, and he considered retiring, before pulling through for just one more season.
2017 was the final dance, with a double goodbye for him – which actually matched the only two games played in the whole season. On December 2nd, 2017, he played his last game at Ajinomoto Stadium, starting the match against Gamba Osaka. The day after, he captained the U-23 side against Cerezo Osaka U-23 and provided his last assist for the winning goal. Despite the retirement, Ishikawa maintained the aim of improving himself, even outside the pitch.
From 2018, Ishikawa embraced an ideal role for him: FC Tokyo’s club ambassador. He remained very tight with FC Tokyo, becoming a community figure for the fans. He also enrolled at the Rikkyo University in 2025, with the aim of getting a degree in sport and wellness science. It seems like FC Tokyo and Naohiro Ishikawa can’t really be separated, and that’s the best gift that the loan in 2002 could have given him.
