Reporter: When did Uchida start playing soccer?
Uchida: I started playing soccer in the first grade on a youth soccer team in my hometown.
Reporter: Have you practiced anywhere else besides with that youth soccer team?
Uchida: I used to play soccer with my classmates during lunch break and after school. At that time, I had the dream of "I want to be a professional football player", but it's common for people to think like that when they're young, so I didn't play soccer specifically to become a professional football player, I just wanted to have fun playing soccer.
Reporter: So initially it was just like a regular soccer kid?
Uchida: That's right, until junior high school. But I had a big change when I enrolled in Shimizu Higashi High School, which is a strong soccer team, in high school.
Reporter: After three years in high school, you joined Kashima and immediately became the first rookie in the team's history to be selected for the opening game of a rookie season in the 2006 J1 season.
Uchida: I think a little bit of luck and timing helped.
Reporter: It's not often that a Japanese representative player realizes during his high school years that he wants to play professionally in the future.
Uchida: Until I was recruited by Kashima, I was in high school with the intention of going to university after graduation. At Shimizu Higashi High School, students are required to write down the university and department they want to study in the future after enrollment, but I didn't have a clear goal at that time, and when I saw the student next to me write down "Waseda", I hadn't seriously thought about becoming a professional soccer player yet, so if I had that kind of thought, I would have written down "I want to join Kashima" or "I want to become a J Leaguer", I guess.
Reporter: If you were to go to college, you would join the soccer team, right?
Uchida: Yes, I was once told that many universities would welcome me if I wanted to continue playing soccer.
Reporter: Do you mean with "the
Soccer Recommendations
What about going to college as a "student"?
Uchida: That's right, because I was called up by the U-16 Japanese representative, I had to go overseas almost once a month for training and competitions. When I returned to school, the textbooks were changed to the second one, and I couldn't keep up with my studies at all, so I knew at the time that it would be impossible for me to get into a university by studying. I was the only one in my class who didn't take the entrance exams and graduated from the university and started working immediately.
Reporter: "Inauguration" is a new and good way of describing yourself as a J Leaguer. When you were in high school, did you have the idea of becoming a professional soccer player because Shimizu East is a famous college soccer family?
Uchida: Yes, because Shimizu Higashi gathers high school students who want to be able to participate in the (National Collegiate Soccer) Players' Rights Conference, and I learned the most basic to the most rigorous things about soccer there.
Reporter: What was your level when you first joined the Clearwater East soccer department?
Uchida: When I was a first-year runner, I was probably just able to squeeze into the back seat. But because I was a fast runner, the supervisor often sent me up on the way to a race.
Reporter: It's tough to suddenly face such a competitive environment in a college, isn't it?
Uchida: Yes, but that's exactly what I expected. My mom would wake up at 4:00 a.m. to make me a bento lunch, and I would take the first bus to school every day (Note: Uchida's home was an hour and a half away from the school by car). But I never wanted to give up, probably because I had a lot of good peers and I wanted to play soccer with them. Although I was too scared to talk to the seniors in the third grade when I was in the first grade.
Reporter: What about all that time?
Uchida: Yes, I was always lectured, but I think the experience helped the players from the soccer team to develop the perseverance to work in society.
Reporter: Hidetoshi Nakata also said in an interview that when hiring employees for his company, he felt that people who were involved in sports when they were students were better because they were more persistent.
Uchida: Maybe it's just my intuition, but even though the J-League youth/U-18 team produces more skilled players, and the number of U-representatives is higher than the number of people from the college soccer system, the ones who survive in the end are the ones who came from the college system, I think.
Reporter: I heard that when you were in Shimizu East, you would stay after team practice and practice alone?
Uchida: Since it takes me a lot of time to commute to school, I only attend occasionally.
Reporter: How do you feel about what you practiced at that time?
Uchida: It was really hard, running from one corner to the other, the supervisor and the coach kicked the ball right in the center, and we chased after it as hard as we could...
Reporter: (Laughs) It doesn't seem like Uchida's character is based on his ability to run, was that something that was forged during his time in Shimizu East?
Uchida: I think so. At that time, I was told to imitate the school OB Kenta Hasegawa's "Kentaring," so I started practicing centering.
Reporter: Kentaring (laughs), but that does sound similar to the way you played in the first place.
