{"id":14330,"date":"2018-08-06T11:05:41","date_gmt":"2018-08-06T02:05:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/?p=14330"},"modified":"2019-04-17T16:43:33","modified_gmt":"2019-04-17T07:43:33","slug":"melbourne-victory-announce-keisuke-honda-signing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/2018\/08\/06\/melbourne-victory-announce-keisuke-honda-signing\/","title":{"rendered":"Melbourne Victory announce Keisuke Honda signing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The A-League&#8217;s Melbourne Victory on Monday announced the signing of Japanese midfielder Keisuke Honda as the league&#8217;s first-ever Asian marquee player, giving fans a happy conclusion to a will-they-or-won&#8217;t-they transfer saga that had unfolded since the World Cup.<\/p>\n<p>After the player himself hinted that Australia was his next destination in an August 2 interview with Japanese internet streaming network AbemaTV, the Victory finally made it official with a flashy video posted to the club&#8217;s official Twitter account declaring &#8220;the wait is over!&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"ja\" dir=\"ltr\">The wait is over! \u3064\u3044\u306b\u3053\u306e\u65e5\u304c\u6765\u307e\u3057\u305f\u3002 <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/MVFC?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#MVFC<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/OurVictory?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#OurVictory<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/E0GdDQz0rn\">pic.twitter.com\/E0GdDQz0rn<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Melbourne Victory (@gomvfc) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/gomvfc\/status\/1026256540842569728?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">August 6, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>In a press conference broadcast on Fox Sports Australia, Victory chairman Anthony Di Pietro expressed his hope that Honda&#8217;s arrival would boost turnout in the A-League&#8217;s 14th season.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This signing presents a wonderful opportunity for our club&#8217;s ambitions,&#8221; Di Pietro said. &#8220;I urge all of our supporters to help make Melbourne Victory the first A-League club to reach 30,000 members.<\/p>\n<p>Honda&#8217;s arrival was made possible by a marquee fund offered by Fox Sports and the Football Federation of Australia (FFA). But manager Kevin Muscat made it clear that it was the former Milan man&#8217;s abilities on the pitch, rather than his star power or commercial potential, that made the difference.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He&#8217;s a hugely driven individual as many people have seen over his career,&#8221; Muscat told Fox Sports Australia. &#8220;To have someone from the football side of things who can contribute heavily to our team and to the competition is the most defining thing for me.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He&#8217;s been nothing short of committed and motivated so we&#8217;re really looking forward to welcoming to Melbourne.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In a pre-taped interview from Los Angeles, Honda expressed his enthusiasm in English, revealing that Victory&#8217;s interest had come as a surprise.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I didn&#8217;t expect to get the offer. My brother (Honda&#8217;s agent) told me after the World Cup that Melbourne were interested in me,&#8221; Honda said. &#8220;I never thought I would play in Australia in my career.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Melbourne Victory are the most successful club in the A-League&#8217;s last 13 years.\u00a0When I talked to [Kevin Muscat], [I sensed a lot of] passion. I love that. That&#8217;s one reason why I decided to play with the club.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The 32-year-old, who in June became the first Japanese player to score in three straight FIFA World Cup tournaments, is scheduled to arrive in Melbourne next week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The A-League&#8217;s Melbourne Victory on Monday announced the signing of Japanese midfielder Keisuke Honda as the league&#8217;s first-ever Asian marquee player, giving fans a happy conclusion to a will-they-or-won&#8217;t-they transfer saga that had unfolded since the World Cup. After the player himself hinted that Australia was his next destination in an August 2 interview with Japanese internet streaming network AbemaTV, the Victory finally made it official with a flashy video posted to the club&#8217;s official Twitter account declaring &#8220;the wait is over!&#8221; The wait is over! \u3064\u3044\u306b\u3053\u306e\u65e5\u304c\u6765\u307e\u3057\u305f\u3002 #MVFC #OurVictory pic.twitter.com\/E0GdDQz0rn &mdash; Melbourne Victory (@gomvfc) August 6, 2018 In a press conference broadcast on Fox Sports Australia, Victory chairman Anthony Di &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/2018\/08\/06\/melbourne-victory-announce-keisuke-honda-signing\/\" class=\"tribe-more-link\">Continue reading &#8220;Melbourne Victory announce Keisuke Honda signing&#8221;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":90,"featured_media":14031,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[380,539,382,243],"class_list":["post-14330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australia","tag-a-league","tag-hyundai-a-league","tag-keisuke-honda","tag-melbourne-victory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/90"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14330"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14330\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}