Before Moving To S'pore To Play, Lion City Sailors' Kyoga Nakamura Faced Financial Struggles, Lived In Rented Room For S$170 A Month

As far as lifestyles of professional footballers go, you've got the lavish lifestyles of the likes of the Hermes-toting Erling Haaland. 

And then you have Kyoga Nakamura, 30, whose life as a professional footballer in Japan was anything but glamorous.

At one point, the Japanese midfielder, who now plays here and has Singapore citizenship, was so financially strapped that he shared a room with a teammate for just 20,000 yen (S$170) a month.

Kyoga also worked part-time as a children's coach, and took on odd jobs, including packing ballpoint pens into boxes when he wasn't training.

Fast-forward to today, and Kyoga is a Singapore citizen, national footballer and player for Lion City Sailors FC.

And according to Kyoga, moving to Singapore in 2019 was the fresh start he desperately needed.

Growing up in Funabashi, Kyoga had shown plenty of promise as a young footballer. He even represented Japan at the 2013 FIFA Under-17 World Cup.

But things took a difficult turn when he began his professional career with JEF United Chiba.

Instead of enjoying the sport he'd loved since childhood, he found himself struggling with the pressure.

"All the confidence I had built up over the years completely crumbled," he wrote on Japanese publishing platform Note.

"I kept making mistakes during training and would get scolded harshly. For the first time in my life, I became afraid of playing football. Back then, I'd wake up every morning feeling depressed, thinking, 'I have to go for training again already...' Going to training became genuinely painful. It was also a period when I stopped enjoying football, even though I had loved it so much,” he added.

Things got worse when JEF United Chiba informed him that his contract wouldn't be renewed while he was playing on loan at Y.S.C.C. Yokohama.

He joined Yokohama permanently in 2018, before deciding to move to Singapore for his career the following year.

"I'd only ever played in Japan, so I was extremely worried and scared about whether I'd be able to make it and survive overseas. But more than anything, I had this strong desire to change myself and break out of my situation. That's what gave me the courage to take that first step," he wrote.

And while Singapore would eventually become home, the adjustment wasn't exactly smooth sailing.

For starters, Kyoga had arrived from Japan during winter, only to find himself dealing with Singapore's year-round heat and humidity.

"I also had health issues and problems with hydration, including adjusting to how much water I needed to drink and the local water conditions. I ended up losing 7kg in my first two months," he recalled.

But once Kyoga settled in, something else began to change. He started enjoying football again.

"Coming to Singapore taught me how to enjoy football again, something I hadn't been able to do for a long time. It's a multicultural country where people respect one another, and mistakes are treated as opportunities to improve,” he wrote.

"I learned to enjoy playing football without being afraid of making mistakes. That's when I started feeling that I wanted to give something back to this country and contribute to it,” he added.

Kyoga first joined Albirex Niigata Singapore in 2019 before moving to Tampines Rovers.

And financially, things were finally looking very different from his days packing ballpoint pens in Japan.

"To be completely frank, there are huge opportunities in Southeast Asian football! When I first transferred to a local club, I was earning around 450,000 yen a month [S$3,800]. I thought, 'That's about what a J2 League player earns,’” he wrote.

He eventually earned him a five-year contract at Tampines, and he later joined Lion City Sailors FC.

Kyoga has since obtained Singapore citizenship and gone on to represent the country internationally.

Despite how much his circumstances have changed, Kyoga says his priorities are now his wife and daughter.

"The biggest part of my routine, and the reason I can stay mentally balanced, is my family. Having my wife and child has changed everything. I don't really spend much money on myself. At most, I put a little into stock investments. But when it comes to creating memories with my family, like going on family holidays, that's something I'm happy to spend money on,” he wrote.