Makoto Hasebe bows out at the top, on his own terms

This weekend, the curtain will come down on the career of one of Japanese soccer’s all-time greats, as Eintracht Frankfurt’s Makoto Hasebe laces up his boots for one final game.

The 40-year-old, who earned 114 caps for the Samurai Blue and captained the team at three consecutive World Cups, burst onto the scene at Urawa Reds in the mid-2000s, but has spent the past 17 years playing in Germany and will make his 384th Bundesliga appearance if he gets onto the pitch against RB Leipzig on Saturday.

His time in the country has included stints at VfL Wolfsburg, where he won the Bundesliga in 2009, 1. FC Nurnberg and Frankfurt, with whom Hasebe added the German Cup and Europa League titles to his impressive medal haul, ensuring that he is as highly regarded in the Rhine-Main region as he is back home in Japan.