Farewell to the kings as midfielders move on

It is the sound of a series of battered and bruised footballs hitting the net behind him.

In front of Kaneko is a wooden contraption crudely approximating a defensive wall. In front of that is Shunsuke Nakamura, a 30-year-old Japanese midfielder who has learned to practise as much as he practises to learn.

The rain desperately sweeps Celtic's training pitches in search of someone to drench. But only Naka remains with his trusty interpreter who doubles as a non-diving goalkeeper. It is almost stereotypical Nakamura. It testifies to the dedication that has become synonymous with the playmaker. But amid the sweat and the toil, Nakamura's relationship with Celtic resembles nothing more than a romance.

Like all romances, it carries emotion, memories and something of substance. Nakamura seems ready to go home. The Celtic supporters seem resigned to losing him. But they will always have Rugby Park and Manchester United, they will always remember the flicks and twirls, the screamer against Rangers . . .

There have been greater players at Celtic Park but Nakamura's contributions are both significant and highly visible. His goal against Kilmarnock in 2007 clinched a league that Celtic were suddenly finding it awkward to win. His strike against Rangers at Celtic Park last season signalled that a championship was not yet out of his side's grasp. His goal against Manchester United in November 2006 was simply the shot that was heard around the world.

As Martin Greig recalls in TheZen of Naka, his intriguing and compelling take on the Japanese master, the goal that won a Champions League group game was watched by the Celtic diaspora worldwide. It attracts a glut of clicks on websites even yet.

Nakamura, almost unwittingly, stands as a representative of what modern football offers and how its significance can be endlessly repeated on an online loop. Nakamura, of course, needs no link to the internet to celebrate his affinity with Celtic and the fans. His modest, hunched walks to the corner flag are greeted with adulation.

Yet he serves as an example of how the business of football has changed but how the romance of the game has not.

Nakamura has advanced through great talent and an even stronger will. Almost discarded as a youngster because of his slight frame, he persevered to play in SerieA with Reggina and then prosper in the Scottish Premier League where he has shown a physical and moral bravery.

Nakamura always takes the dunts and always takes the ball. Many commentators have held on to first impressions of the midfielder. They still insist he can disappear from games. But close scrutiny of Nakamura, particularly over the last year, must surely convince the sceptics that Nakamura never shirks either work or responsibility.

His modernity is emphasised by his dedication to training. There is the famous warm-down that includes a hot and cold bath, a series of stretches and a visit to the gym. His stature as a man apart is signposted by the small huddle of his fellow countrymen who gather around him and gather quotes for a Japanese public who need, absolutely need, to know everything about their exiled genius.

Shin Toyofuku, one of these chroniclers, has followed Nakamura from Japan to Italy to Glasgow. "He is a polite man," says Toyofuku. "He is not difficult to deal with and aware of our needs."

But what does Toyofuku believe Celtic have given Nakamura, apart from a healthy pay check? "He has gained both physical and mental strength," says the newspaperman.

Nakamura keeps his distance from the Scottish press. Kaneko interprets for him on the rare occasions he is presented to the media. But many believe that Nakamura speaks better English than he lets on.

If his words have to be translated, his actions do not. There are two images of Nakamura that show the measure of the man. One is ofhim trooping off Celtic Park after the penalty shoot-out victory over Spartak Moscow that took the club into the group stages of the Champions League.

"It was a euphoric moment for the club and its supporters," recalls Greig, his biographer, "but when the winning penalty hit the net Nakamura turned and walked quietly off the park with his head bowed. He had missed a penalty in the shoot-out and spurned three chances late in the game. He was disconsolate. Afterwards, when speaking to theJapanese press, hewas almost intears.

"In Japan, the concept of group responsibility is huge. Nakamura felt he had failed to play his part in the collective achievement and therefore had no right to draw any individual joy from victory. Itsaid everything about the pursuit of perfection that has been the driving force of his career since his mid-teens." But there were other episodes in the romance and many were ones of joy.

"The one moment that seems to sum up Nakamura's Celtic career was his reaction to scoring the free-kick that won the league against Kilmarnock in 2007," says Greig. "He tore off his shirt and twirled it around his head like a maniac before diving into the crowd behind the goals. In Britain and Europe, such a reaction might be deemed unremarkable but for a Japanese player to display such emotion was astonishing to a Far East audience. It summed up how much the adoration from the Celtic fans had drawn Nakamura out of his shell. Nakamura has given so much to Celtic, but Celtic has returned the compliment. The result is a player who has woven himself into the fabric of the club in a way only a select band of players ever manage."

And this is how the romance will continue. Nakamura will go but the memories will remain.

Ferguson Slinking out to wind down at West Brom is hardly a fitting send-off, but Rangers icon must see he has only himself to blame says Darryl Broadfoot

Barry Ferguson hasrevealed himself as an unlikely admirer of the works of Oscar Wilde.

Okay, so he did a Google search for a slogan to tattoo on himself to reflect his pariah status in Scottish football and happened upon Wilde's quotation, "Every saint has a past, every sinner has a future". He is in dubious company, with the pointless Calum Best beating him to the body art.

There is another Wilde observation that more accurately reflects the undulations and regrettable unfulfilment of Ferguson's stagnant career: "Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination".

Who would have thought it would come to this? Ferguson, in the supposed peak years of his profession, bereft of the captain's armband he cherished like a son, playing a bounce game ahead of a title decider in which his role is unclear but probably peripheral, and preparing for the twilight years in the unsightly maelstrom of the Coca-Cola Championship.

There is a profound sadness to the grubbiness of Ferguson's impending farewell to Rangers. He, like Richard Gough and John Greig, ought to have been carried out of Ibrox on his shield and hailed a hero for the breadth and depth of his service to the club with whom his life has been inextricably linked since childhood. Instead, he will be shooed out of the door, the highest-profile victim of a financial paucity that runs frighteningly deeper than a decent Champions League run.

There will be no World Cup finals to consider as the setting for a suitably glittering send-off. Instead, if his instincts are correct, he will play out his days in the Black Country and a town whose motto sums up the honest nature of their toil, and gives an insight into the drudgery ahead: Work Conquers All.

Ferguson, at various staging posts of his decline, has blamed various people for the misery that has heaped upon him. Only when he retires to family life and adjusts to the everyday responsibilities of real life - for the Old Firm cocoon can often deceive its inhabitants into believing their existence is a Utopian eternity - will it dawn on him that his public image and disillusionment with football have been self-inflicted.

Unusually for such an enduring figure, few people can legitimately claim to know Ferguson and that is especially so among the sportswriting fraternity. He had been placed on a pedestal and protected by some - until they could no longer justify such soft-soaping PR work - and received the harshest criticism from others. As a result, the latter years of his career were played out in crazy, unscientific polarisation: he was either brilliant or bloody awful. The truth was somewhere in between.

Ferguson's biggest mistake was not leaving Rangers in 2003, by then overpopulated by cheap imitations, but leaving his team for Blackburn Rovers. Even accounting for the persuasiveness of Graeme Souness, it was akin to kitting out a Ford Cortina with a Rolls Royce engine. It made him a wealthier man but, when you have amassed Ferguson's fortune, triumphant memories become of greater value than your next million.

It is where the insularity of the Scottish psyche betrayed Ferguson. According to Dick Advocaat, the Alan Whicker of coaching, Ferguson could have thrived in anyleague in Europe: Italy, France, Germany, Spain or the upper echelons in England. He chose a mediocre mid-table Premier League club and paid an awful price.

A broken knee-cap, added to anearlier pelvic problem, rendered him damaged goods by the time he returned to Rangers in January 2005. There was silverware but there was also the suspicion that Ferguson's lack of adventure, along with serious injury, had cost him his full potential. It was not so much the personality of Paul Le Guen, an eminently likeable man, that created friction between the captain and his coach, but the arrival of such utterly forgettable signings asKarl Svensson, Filip Sebo, Lionel Letizi and Libor Sionko which Ferguson regarded as an affront to the traditions of the club.

He saw Le Guen off the premisesbut not Smith. There is a basic decency and courteousness to the current Rangers manager thatis barely reciprocated in Ferguson's daily duties. It was primarily for this reason, on top of his contemptuous antics in Cameron House and again at Hampden Park, that the captaincy was removed and Ferguson was flung out of the position he had grown all too comfortable in.

Ferguson had more respect for Smith than he deigned to display towards Le Guen but, again, the realisation of what his team had become became apparent in every barrack and barb. He will not be remembered as a smiling, encouraging leader but a scowling and frankly selfish one. His constant carping at team-mates - Charlie Adam, Sasa Papac and KyleLafferty most obviously - was an outward display of the frustrations of having kept better and more illustrious company.

Now, after the corrosive effects of reconstructive ankle surgery, theirony will not be lost on Ferguson that he can no longer command a game in what, in a historic context, is a thoroughly average Rangers team.

At 31, and with three serious operations behind him, he no longer possesses the raw aggression now evident in Maurice Edu's developing game, or the driving determination that has characterised Steven Davis' season, or even the unruffled elegance of Pedro Mendes when the Portuguese deigns to turn it on. Ferguson, judging by his receptiveness to West Bromwich Albion's invitation, is now acutely aware of his limitations. A season with a team expected to compete for the Coca-Cola Championship is a more agreeable and dignified alternative to being given a regular pasting at a side in the bottom half of the Barclays Premier League.

There are two games left at Rangers in which to salvage his legacy. Smith, as reasonable as he is uncompromising, is likely to give Ferguson a final opportunity to repent. If he can summon his last reserves of influence, it is possible he can content himself with leaving under a cloud but with the silver lining of league and Homecoming Scottish Cup success.

Ferguson has spent most of his adult life at Rangers and, beforehand, was exposed to the relentless objectives through his big brother, Derek. In that time, he has won four championships, five League Cups and four Scottish Cups. He has surpassed David Narey and Kenny Dalglish for competitive European appearances for a Scottish player, earned an MBE for services to football and is the only active player in Rangers' Hall of Fame.

It is for these contributions Ferguson should be best remembered, not for an ill-advised V-sign or for propping up a hotel bar. He will live with his actions, good and bad, for the rest of his life. There is comfort in the wisdom of Wilde: "It is absurd to divide people into good and bad - people are either charming or tedious".