[WE ARE GAMBA OSAKA 2025] MF38 Gaku NAWATA｜ GAMBA OSAKA Official Site

Throughout last year’s battles, the keyword for the team was “passion.”
The battles that fueled them were expressed as a desire to win, creating excitement in the stadium.
This season’s WE ARE GAMBA OSAKA will shine a spotlight on the spirit that lies behind the “passion” of each player. What kind of power will their soul, enthusiasm, courage, and determination give to the team this season?

For Gaku NAWATA, his first year as a professional was a frustrating one. He had been attracting attention as a “super high school player” since his days at Kamimura Gakuen High School, and joined Gamba with much fanfare, but so far he has only played in three J1 League matches, including his first start in the opening match. In other competitions, he started in two matches in the J.LEAGUE YBC Levain CUP, but has yet to take to the pitch in the EMPEROR’S CUP or AFC Champions League 2.

“Until high school, I wasn’t thinking about what I needed to do to play in a game, but rather about how I should play in the next game based on my reflections after playing in a game. So, this was the first season I’d ever had such a strong desire to play in a game.”

He was also left out of the U-20 Japan national team and was unable to achieve his immediate goal of competing in the FIFA U-20 World Cup Chile 2025. With these experiences in mind, he has been asking himself, “What am I doing?” over the past six months in particular.

“Honestly, I’ve been working on a lot of things while feeling a lot of different things, but unless I play in matches, I can’t see where I’ve improved, what I can truly do, and what I’m lacking. You can’t gain true confidence unless you have the experience of success in matches. Not being able to grab that opportunity myself, not being able to gain the trust of the Head Coach, made me realize how useless I was, and this year has made my desire to play in matches grow to its maximum.”

However, Nawada does not consider it a “setback.” Or rather, he probably doesn’t have time to be hurt by something like that right now.

“Maybe in a few years I’ll think, ‘Oh, those were tough times,’ but I don’t feel that way now. I’m 19 years old and can’t afford to be mentally devastated just because I didn’t play in a game this year. If that’s the case, it would be better for me to focus my attention on how to move forward from here on out. That’s why I want to accept the reality that I haven’t been able to play in a game, that I haven’t achieved enough results to gain credibility, and make sure I grab something with the next opportunity that comes my way. As the words “keep going” that various seniors have been telling me to do, I believe that the only way forward is to keep going.”

To achieve this, he is reminding himself to “compete using his own characteristics.” This is a spirit that he has once again firmly ingrained in him through the battles of this season.

“What I’ve reaffirmed over the past year is that if you can’t finish, or make assists in front of the goal, or play in a way that leads to scoring, it won’t translate into any positive evaluation. My goal, in the first place, is to be a player who, no matter how bad my form, “ultimately does the job,” whether it’s an assist or a goal, but I don’t want to lose sight of my own unique traits, which are not just about creating attacks, but also about getting involved in scoring and going for goals. For a while, I was resorting to passing more often, and the coaching staff and senior players around me pointed out that “you’re looking forward less and taking shots less,” and it reminded me that if I lose sight of that, it’s all over. To survive in this world, I want to be a player who can make a difference, and what my strengths are, but if I can’t play in a way that leads to scoring, it’s no good. That’s why I’ve once again made that my core value, and I’m pushing myself so hard.”

I believe that pursuing that goal will lead to competing in official matches and achieving the results that I desire more than anything else.

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Text by Takamura Misa