Tatsuhiro Sakamoto has revealed the extent of his back injury that cut short his impressive first season with Coventry City and issued a heartfelt thank-you to the fans for their love and support during his time out.
The hugely popular Japanese player fell and landed heavily after jumping to flick on a header under a challenge against Preston North End in February, resulting in him being treated on the pitch for several minutes before being stretchered off and taken to hospital.
“I’m feeling very good now. I have no pain anymore, so I am very happy to be back out there and back on the pitch. I trained hard and did a lot of exercise to make myself better. That period of time during my injury gave me a good opportunity to come back stronger, so I could train hard and now I feel very good.”
Unfortunately for the fan favourite, he was unable to fly home to Japan, explaining: “I didn’t go back because it was hard for my back to travel, because it would have been a long flight, so I stayed in Coventry. I couldn’t go outside for a month, so I spent time with my family in my house.”
Tatsu received support and love from both his teammates and the fans during his difficult time out, with one special moment when Ellis Simms scored and held up Sakamoto’s shirt as part of his celebration against Rotherham United.
“I saw on the TV when Ellis did that and I was so grateful for that moment,” he said, of the striker he roomed with in pre-season.
“I have to say one thing, when I got injured, a lot of supporters sent me letters and messages, so I was very grateful for this. It gave me a lot of energy and I want to say thank you to everyone who spent that time to do that.
“I am just very happy to be back playing now and playing football because I couldn’t play for a long time, so now I need to show what I can do for the supporters.”
As for his English, Sakamoto has worked hard to brush up on the language and now feels confident enough to do interviews.
“I hope my English is getting better now,” he said. “I have English lessons twice a week and the other days I study English myself. To be honest, when I joined this team, I felt everyone spoke very quickly, so I couldn’t understand anything.
“When I played in Belgium they spoke slowly, so it was easy to understand them, so I was shocked when I came here. Because of this, I started to study English a lot more, but still, it isn’t great, so I keep studying every day.”
His teammates have helped, although Ben Wilson’s North East accent and speed of delivery is an issue, while a couple of players even make the effort to converse in a bit of Japanese.
“For me Ben Wilson is a little difficult to understand and Jamie Allen as well,” he said. “They speak very quickly and its difficult for me.
“Sometimes Milan (van Ewijk) speaks to me in Japanese, because he knows some Japanese words and we speak together sometimes. Fábio (Tavares) also tries as well, as he loves Japanese anime, and he tries to use those words he has learnt to speak to me.”
As for settling into a different culture in England and Coventry, he said: “I’ve been here over a year now. I feel comfortable in Coventry with my family, and we have had a good time.
“My family like the City and I love it here and I love the crowd and the City and as I said I feel comfortable in the City with the people.
“I usually spend my spare time with my family. Sometimes I will go shopping and go to the park with my daughter. She still doesn’t understand football because she is only two-years old, but one day I hope she can see me and understand what I do.
Leave a Reply