Kawasaki Frontale midfielder Kengo Nakamura admits he cannot wait to take on Shinji Ono this week.
The J.League club take on Western Sydney Wanderers in Matchday 3 of the AFC Asian Champions League on Wednesday night and Nakamura is relishing the prospect of coming up against his former Japanese national teammate.
"Personally, I am looking forward to playing against Sydney, because Shinji-san is there," said Nakamura who insisted that he would not ask for the former Feyenoord ace's phone number.
"He is my idol, even though we only have a year difference in age.
"But I can't ask for his number, he is too great to me."
Nakamura added: "Unfortunately, I don't watch the match videos (of Ono's A-League games), but sometimes I see him on YouTube.
"And I still think he is really as good as ever.
"I'm not surprised at all that he's so popular in Australia. He is a great player. He was very popular in Japan too.
"His basic technique is of a very high quality; he has a great deal of ideas; he has technique that surprises people. There are not a lot of players who have both that technique and those ideas, not only in Japan, but also in world football."
Kawasaki currently sit third on the Group H table with a win and a loss from their two matches while the Wanderers are second with the same record, although ahead on goals scored.
