Japan’s Tulio vows to give all at World Cup

Japan’s Brazilian-born defender Marcus Tulio Tanaka has vowed to make his first World Cup a bruising battle he can remember with pride as a hard man among the Blue Samurai.

“I don’t want the World Cup finals to be like food that I can’t remember the taste of,” the J-League Nagoya Grampus player said.

“It would be fantastic if our hard work from the World Cup tastes like strawberries but there is also a possibility it could taste nasty,” he told Kyodo news agency in an interview published Wednesday.

“Even if we get hammered and it is not a nice feeling, I want to feel it completely in my body. I don’t want to come back home wondering maybe if I could have given a bit more,” said the 185-centimetre (six-foot-one-inch) player.

Tulio, who turns 29 on Saturday, is seen as sure to be selected alongside Yokohama F Marinos’ Yuji Nakazawa as the main centre backs when Japan face Cameroon, the Netherlands and Denmark at the World Cup group stage in South Africa.

He has scored seven goals in 37 international appearances.

Despite being crowned the 2006 J-League Player of the Year, Tulio was ignored by Japan’s then-coach Brazilian legend Zico for the squad that made an early exit from the 2006 World Cup in Germany after losing to Australia and Brazil and drawing with Croatia.

“Maybe I won’t have another chance to play at the World Cup and I just want my whole body to react when someone mentions the tournament in 70 years time, if I’m still alive then,” Tulio said.

Tulio first came to Japan, his father’s homeland, aged 16, to enrol at a high school as an exchange student and football player. He joined the J-League Sanfrecce Hiroshima in 2001.

He moved to Urawa in 2004 after a year on loan to a second-division side and helped the country’s best-supported team win the AFC Champions League title in 2007. He signed with Nagoya in January.

Tulio, who obtained Japanese nationality in 2003, will become the third Brazilian-born player to represent Japan at the World Cup, following Wagner Lopes in 1998 and Nagoya team-mate Alessandro Santos in 2002 and 2006.

He admitted he was at first sceptical of Japan coach Takeshi Okada’s ambitious goal of a semi-final spot in South Africa.

“To be honest I also thought ‘what?’ first of all, but we have played against a number of strong opponents and I see no reason why we can’t achieve that,” he said.