VNL 2023

Nishida joins one million club on Instagram

The 23-year-old star becomes the second Japanese player with so many followers

Published 07:26, 12 Apr 2023

Volleyball Nations League 2022 Brasilia Men - IRIvsJPN-7

The Japanese national team players are gaining more and more popularity, not only at home, but all over the world, and this is evident by the numerous fans who are interested in what the athletes have to post on social media. This has also resulted in Yuji Nishida becoming the second player of this talented generation to reach over one million followers on Instagram, a milestone that demonstrates his iconic status in the world of volleyball.

His younger Ryujin Nippon teammate Ran Takahashi was the first to join the one million club on Instagram and that happened last summer, during Volleyball Nations League 2022. Takahashi’s following has, of course, grown further and is currently approaching 1.2 million. Nishida has recently started building up his second million, while Yuki Ishikawa is the third most popular Japanese national team player on Instagram, with over 813 thousand followers.

These numbers are bound to increase further, especially in the coming months, when Ryujin Nippon’s 2023 season unfolds with matches in the VNL in June and July, the Asian Championship in August and the Paris 2024 Olympic qualification tournament in September and October, and what will add to it is that Japan will play many of these important games at home.

In the first competition week of the VNL Preliminary Phase, Japan will take on Iran, Serbia, Bulgaria and France in Nagoya. They will also host one of this year’s three Olympic qualification tournaments, welcoming the national teams of Egypt, Finland, Serbia, Slovenia, Tunisia, Turkiye and the United States for the matches of Pool B in Japan.

Nishida in action during VNL 2022

Yuji Nishida was only 19 years old when he was named on the 2019 FIVB Volleyball World Cup Dream Team as the best opposite of the competition, where Japan finished with a prestigious fourth place. He was also by far the best server of the tournament, 10 aces clear on top of the statistical chart.

He really gained in popularity in 2021, when Ishikawa and he were Japan’s best scorers, best attackers and best servers at their home Olympics in Tokyo. Nishida’s popularity grew further as he transferred to Tonno Callipo Calabria Vibo Valentia to spend his first club season abroad, in the strong Italian Superlega, and then as Japan performed really well in VNL 2022 and at the 2022 FIVB Volleyball World Championship.