Hello people. How is it all going? My name is Naoki Imaya. I just started a blog or a diary, whatever you like to call it. My home page is www.naocastle.com but its under construction at the moment, and yes, i think it is in japanese :p im gonna try and fix that though, so you can read it in english as well.
Little bit about myself, i was born in Japan and came to sydney at 10yrs old due to my dad's work and also to pursue my parents dream to live in an english speaking country. Im a professional footballer, or a soccer player as you may like to call it in other countries. Ive played in Australia and Switzerland, and right now i'm injured with a broken leg.
I am off to New Zealand for the new elite football comp, that commences this year in Australia called A-league. The league consists of 7 teams from AUS and 1 from NZ and that team is New Zealand Knights. Ive signed for 1 season with them and hoping to recover from this injury early as possible to get back on the park.
well, thats my intro, i will wirte again. take it easy

Not that i was going for them, but Man Utd shud've won the FA cup. Arsenal played well at the start and then it was all Man U. Disappointing game for me as Fabregas, my 2nd favourite player at the moment (after Ronaldinho) didnt have a good game. How good is that bloke? 17? gotta be feke passport!
Anyways NZ knights said to have signed 18 players already..... but havent been announced yet.
hmmmmmm, theres few players still available at blacktown. and ex blacktown player simon catanzaro is looking for an A-league club. if u sign catta, we'll just hit cross bars all day! ( sorry, personal joke)
Champions league, later tonight..... hey joel, u shud've put money on liverpool like you said when they were paying $26! rather than spending money on a horse. aaaaaaaand i have a feeling they might just win. But my feeling is usually wrong, just like when im playing the pokies.
Im offski for now, but i will try and keep the English journals coming as much as possible.

Liverpool aye. Gerrard, what a 2nd half! captain at 24? you gotta be kidding. I got goose bumps when Liverpool made it 2-3. Milan must have thought they would still hold on... Big mistake...it was like us few weeks ago when we were winning 4-2 with 20min to go and ended up losing 4-5!
If you havent got Japanese language stored in your computer, all the jap journals i wrote must be all like boxes. if you click the Hi category on the right hand side, it will go to a page where it only has English journals.
Im heading to NZ next month, and cant wait to get back on the park. its still few months away but im sure ill still go for few nutties in cheva.
special mention to adam kwasnik. he scored in hong kong sevens for the mariners. kwas got injured during the same game when i broke my leg, and was set to miss out around 6 weeks. hes come back earlier and sounds like hes doing well. maybe a little biassed opinion, but hes good enough to be one of the best striker in the A-league. just stay away from the pokies man...

Big game tonight for Japan in the world cup qualifier against Bahrain. c'mon nakamura!
Japan missing shinji ono with a stress fracture that appeared just two days before the kick off.
ono, who is for me the best player for japan at the moment alongside with shunsuke nakamura will surely be missed by zico.
nakata will replace ono in the deeper midifeld role instead of being just behind a lone striker. huuuuuge expectation and faith shown from zico to nakata, who has not played for fiorentina in the last 9 games... but still puts him in the starting lineup to lead japan to a victory, which will almost assure japans place in germany 2006.
nakata, who is often criticised by media in japan (because they ask him million questions and he cant give them million answers) has said he is in good condition.
i hope he proves the critics wrong.

Yeeees yes, Japans going to Germany 2006. They certainly look like a team capable of doing quite well in the world cup given that they still have 1 year to improve.
My team in Sydney, Blacktown will play in the finals series tomorrow against Canberra.
Canberra knocked off Sydney united which was a surprise for me as Sydney united were the best side that i played against this season.
Since coming back from Swiss and Japan, Blacktown really looked after me and i would like to thank all the staff and the committee. coaches, Brian Brown and Cliff Pointer signed for another season and i wish them all the best in the following season.
We had a great year, we were the premiers and still could do the double if we can sneak past Canberra tomorrow night.
Good luck boys! ill be on the sideline just drinking coffee and yelling some crap...

Thanks to all the people at the knights, ive settled in smoothly and can just concentrate on my leg becoming better.
The set up is sensational, and the team, well its too early to say anything.
They are great bunch of lads and actually we are going away to queensland for a week before we play Sydney on the 23rd of July.
I'm living on my own 2 min from the ground. and theres few of our boys living close by, so its all good.
The weather is actually quite good and to be honest I like what i see in New Zealand so far.
It reminds me of swiss in a way, when i see lots of green and the deep green colour in the ocean.
My legs quite good at the moment. i can walk around normally and can do few excersises with the ball already.

joel griffiths got called up for socceroo and deserved it too.
well done mate! and good luck. all the other ozs been getting a call up from swiss, and not even been playing week in week out, when joels been playing well for his club.
im still couple of weeks away from joining in full training sessions, but played in a game within
ourselves yesterday.
we are still struggling to play as a team, and the quality hasnt been at the best during training sessions.
hopefully we can gel together as a team in the near future.

It was definetly good to see us get a win on the weekend!
Ive actually started training with the team from last week. the fitness is still not 100%, but im
feeling ok. scored 2 goals in a game within the team. I hope im in the squad this week, away to Newcastle.

Looking back at this season, it was definetly not the ideal one for myself.
Obviously started the season with recovering from a broken leg, which took me to the 5th round to play my 1st game for the knights.
Then im finishing the season off with another lengthy injury i suffered 3 weeks ago when i was just starting to play well.
But i have learned a great deal over this season and im hoping to do better in the upcoming season.

People talk about luck, i believe luck comes to people who always put the extra effort in.
Whether you are in the team or not, you have to work hard. i mean especially if you are out of the team, you should really be working extra harder.Easy to say because it does kill you mentally but you gotta do it.
You start to go wrong when you start thinking, yea but im better than that guy whos playing in front of me. Well you're ovbiously not, at least in the coach's eye.
To be perfectly honest, i was devastated when i was watching the games from the sideline for few weeks in a row, and i always use to think for the player that is playing in front of me to stuff up, so i can play.
Its normal to think like that i think... but its wrong isnt it? Then i start to think different. i was more like, i hope the other players do well too, and when i get my chance and come on to the field, i just have to do better than them. then its fair(at least in my mind),

Mind can change your attitude which can change the environment. You always have excuses when you're not putting your 100% effort in.

Someone came up to me the other day and said, it must've been tough this year with injury and your team not doing well. and i was like, compare to what i went through in europe, it was absolutely nothing. Nothing is a waste in life, you can always learn and grow from every single day you face.

The knights have asked me to extend my contract. i hope this year is the year for me to go and play for real madrid! nah just kidding.
On a serious note, my ex-team mate Joel Griffiths signed a 18months contract with leeds. Definetly deserves it, congratulations. i just hope neuchatel xamax would hurry up and give him his clearance so he can start playing for leeds!

Anyway thats me, take it easy and have a good day!