Shinji Okazaki will end his career in the summer. The 37-year-old former Bundesliga professional announced this on Monday
Shinji Okazaki has played for VV St. Truiden since 2023. While the Japanese player was able to play 30 games for the Belgian first division club coached by Thorsten Fink in the previous season, he has only played five so far this season. Injuries have repeatedly set him back – and led to a decision. The former Stuttgart and Mainz player will end his career after this season. “I gave my all as a footballer, but as an athlete you also have to listen to your body. Today I am reaching my physical limits,” he is quoted as saying in a statement from his club.
The former international (119 caps for Japan, Asian champion in 2011) is currently struggling with a knee injury. “In the remaining weeks, I will do everything I can to get fit again,” he says.
Bundesliga in Stuttgart and Mainz, title in England and promotion in Spain
Okazaki has played 128 Bundesliga games in his career for VfB Stuttgart and Mainz 05, among others. The Swabians were also the ones who brought the striker to Germany from his native Japan in January 2011. However, Okazaki did not celebrate his greatest club success with VfB or Mainz, who he left for England in 2015 after two years: in 2016, he surprisingly won the Premier League with Leicester City. He appeared in 36 of 38 league games, scoring five goals and providing two assists. In the same year, he was voted Asia’s Footballer of the Year.
In 2019, he moved to the Spanish second division, where Okazaki was also successful: he scored twelve goals to help SD Huesca win promotion to La Liga and played there for a further year before finally ending up in Belgium in 2022 via a stopover in Cartagena – where he will now retire in the summer.
