Maya Yoshida

Maya Yoshida (吉田 麻也) is a Japanese professional footballer who plays as a centre-back for Major League Soccer club LA Galaxy.

Yoshida formerly played for the Japan national team, making over 120 appearances.

After spending five years at Nagoya Grampus Youth Academy, he was promoted to the first team in the 2007 season, having signed his first professional contract.

Yoshida joined the club's first team training soon after and started out as a defensive midfielder while playing for Grampus's youth team, but was converted to centre back.

After spending months on the substitute bench, Yoshida finally made his debut for the club, coming on as a second-half substitute, in a 2–1 loss against Oita Trinita on 3 May 2007.

Since then, he became a first team regular for the side, playing in the centre–back position.

It wasn't until on 5 November 2007 when Yoshida scored his first Nagoya Grampus goal, in a 3–1 win against Thespa Kusatsu in the fourth round of the Emperor's Cup.

At the end of the 2007 season, he went on to make twenty–four appearances and scoring once in all competitions.

He was additionally part of Japan's Olympic football team at the 2008, 2012 and 2020 games.

Born in Nagasaki, Japan, Yoshida began playing football at Nanling FC in his second year at elementary school.

His older brother, Honami, played an important role in starting his football career when he searched on the internet for Nagoya Grampus's U-15 team and this led Yoshida to join the U-15 side.

Once Yoshida joined, Yoshida relocated to Nagoya to be close at Nagoya Grampus and attended Toyota High School.

In the 2008 season, Yoshida began to feature in the starting line-up for most of the league matches with his Serbian teammate Miloš Bajalica.

He started the season well when he helped the side go on an unbeaten run of seven matches in all competitions.

Yoshida continued to feature in the first team until he was called up to the Japan U23 squad in July.

After Japan U23's elimination in the Summer Olympics, it wasn't until on 23 August 2008 when Yoshida returned to the starting line-up against Kashima Antlers and scored his first goal of the season, in a 2–1 win.

Following this, he lost his first team place and was placed on the substitute bench for the next five matches, leading his playing time to be reduced.

Yoshida's second goal then came on 2 November 2008 against FC Gifu in the fourth round of the Emperor's Cup and helped them win 1–0.

By mid–October, he regained his first team place for the remaining matches of the season and helped the side finish third place in the league.

At the end of the 2008 season, he went on to make twenty–nine appearances and scoring two times in all competitions.

At the start of the 2009 season, Yoshida switched number shirt to four.

He scored Nagoya Grampus's historical first goal in the AFC Champions League in the game against Ulsan Hyundai Horang-i on 10 March 2009.

Yoshida continued to regain his first team place for the side, playing in the centre–back position.

A month later on 26 April 2009, he scored his second goal of the season, in a 2–1 win against Yokohama F. Marinos.

However, Yoshida suffered a calf injury that saw him sidelined for two weeks.

Yoshida made his first team return on 18 July 2009 and started the whole game, in a 1–1 draw against Kyoto Sanga.

He scored his third goal of the season, in a 2–1 win against FC Tokyo eleven days later on 29 July 2009, but the club was eliminated in the J.League Cup following a 6–3 on aggregate.

Yoshida later added two more goals throughout September, scoring against Kashiwa Reysol and Kawasaki Frontale.

Since returning to the first team, Yoshida regained his first team place for the remaining matches of the season.

He later added two more goals throughout October.

Yoshida scored his eighth goal of the season, in a 3–1 win against Júbilo Iwata in the fourth round of the Emperor's Cup.

He later helped the club to reach the Emperor's Cup final after beating Shimizu S-Pulse 5–4 on penalty shoot–out following a 1–1 draw throughout 120 minutes.

However, he started in the Emperor's Cup Final against Gamba Osaka, as Nagoya Grampus lost 4–1 in what turned out to be his last appearance for the club.

At the end of the 2009 season, Yoshida went on to make forty–eight appearances and scoring eight times in all competitions.

In December 2009, it was announced that Yoshida had transferred to Dutch club VVV-Venlo, signing a three–year contract.

He had desired to play for a club in Europe since he was young.

Keisuke Honda, who was his teammate at Nagoya Grampus, introduced his agent, Tetsuro Kiyooka to support his future vision.

Indeed, Yoshida followed the footsteps of Keisuke Honda who also played for VVV-Venlo before he joined them.

He was a member of the side's squads for the FIFA World Cup in 2014, 2018 and 2022, and the AFC Asian Cup in 2011, 2015 and 2019, winning the latter tournament in 2011 and finishing as runner-up in 2019.

For his performance, Yoshida was award Rookie of the Year at the 14th Aichi Toyota "Grand Pass Rankle Award".