Hinata Miyazawa: A magic midfielder made for United

You may recall it. Maya Le Tissier and Hinata Miyazawa stood side-by-side, speaking to Sky Sports about a comprehensive 3-0 victory in Leigh. Captain Maya described it as “a very good team performance” before the topic of conversation quickly shifted to a specific individual. The one by her left shoulder, to be exact, who smiled as she made eye contact with an assembly of colleagues watching the TV interview from close by.

“She’s magic – a ‘mini Modric’, we like to call her,” Le Tissier beamed as she revealed the squad’s nickname for Miyazawa, soon to be presented with the Player of the Match award – to cheers from those huddled just out of shot – after the latest in an impressive run of midfield performances. 

“Not Modric!” Hinata quickly fired back, her humble character and personality attempting to play down any praise, let alone comparisons to Luka, the Ballon d’Or-winning star that plays in the same position as her. But Maya continued with her rave review: “She’s the nicest girl and a lot of her work on the ball and off the ball goes unnoticed. She’s had to work hard to get into the team and now she’s cemented her spot, she’s one of our best players every single week. Credit to her and what a great player she is.”

A great player that United fans had the pleasure of watching for much of 2025. Miyazawa started 38 of the team’s 40 outings last year and, alongside Maya, is one of only two players to have been in the starting XI for every game so far this term.
 
She passed the 50-appearance yardstick for the club in September’s win away to London City and is now hurtling towards the century mark. The Japan international’s importance to Marc Skinner’s side is growing and, having recently extended her contract here to 2029, she could be the first player born outside of Europe to achieve the 100-game feat for our women.

As her tally increases, so does the band of inspired nicknames. ‘Hiniesta’, a nod to legendary Barcelona midfielder Andres Iniesta, is another clever invention going round in United circles.

“I am very happy that everyone has given me a variety of nicknames,” Hini laughs as we get her latest take during a recent sit-down chat at Carrington, conducted prior to her contract announcement. “Both Modric and Iniesta are great players. Whenever I am called by their names, I think I want to be like them. I’d like to become a player worthy of their names.”

BREAKOUT TOURNAMENT 

Hinata made a name for herself at the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup, winning the tournament’s Golden Boot after scoring five goals in an exciting Japan side that were tipped as title contenders before their quarter-final exit to Sweden. Miyazawa was at the heart of her nation’s group-stage campaign, bursting into the 18-yard box to net braces against Zambia and eventual champions Spain – the latter in an eye-catching 4-0 rout – before getting on target again in a last-16 victory over Norway.
 
Shining at a major tournament was nothing new for Hini, though. After all, she was a key member of the Japan squads that won the U20 World Cup in 2018 and finished runners-up at the U17 equivalent in 2016.

But for the speedster who had enjoyed a successful five-year club career in her country’s top flight after graduating from high school, this was a maiden senior World Cup and a first chance to shine on the biggest of stages – and shine she did.

Less than a month later, Hinata was touring our Carrington training ground in the early-September sunshine, as a new United signing.

“There was a lot of excitement when she came to England, off the back of that Women’s World Cup where she’d won the Golden Boot and performed so well in a Japanese team that really caught people’s eye,” recalls Emma Sanders, senior women’s football news reporter at BBC Sport, who was Down Under covering the competition in Australia and New Zealand. “When you play for a country like Japan, where the way that they play is so much about the fluidity within the team and less about individual quality, it’s actually quite hard to stand out. So, for Miyazawa to win the Golden Boot shows just how strong of a tournament she had.

“She was everywhere in that Japanese team and it’s something a lot of people took away from Japan in that tournament, that a lot of these players have got the ability to play anywhere on the pitch because they have the skillsets, the qualities, then it’s just about learning about each other’s movement and the opposition as well, how they can exploit those spaces. That’s what Miyazawa does so well for Japan, and she’s obviously translated that now with United.”

TURNING POINT 

Hini is honest, however, in admitting she didn’t enjoy the smoothest of transitions into English football.

“[The Women’s Super League’s] speed and physicality are very different from Japan, and at the beginning I struggled with the difference in intensity of play,” the former Tokyo Verdy Beleza and Mynavi Sendai star admirably confesses in our conversation.

A move from the other side of the world, involving learning a new language and playing for one of the globe’s biggest clubs in one of its best leagues was always going to take some time, but Miyazawa’s bid to settle was made even tougher when she suffered a fractured ankle while on international duty in December 2023, just as she was beginning to build up some momentum.

The injury sidelined our no.20 until March of the following year but, despite being fit again, she’d only start four of the Reds’ next 17 fixtures and was still to properly nail down a role in the side. Across those four outings alone, Hini played as a central box-to-box midfielder and a wide forward – the position from which she caught the eye at the World Cup.

A solution was needed, and it came via a conversation that involved Miyazawa and head coach Skinner in pre-season ahead of 2024/25.

“We were at the summer camp in my second season, I hadn’t played as much as I liked, so we discussed where they wanted to use me. Marc told me what he thought, and I told him my opinion. I think it was a turning point,” Hini says, when we ask her how it came about that she would begin to operate as a deep-lying ‘no.6’ for United, a position she has very much made her own over the last year.

“There were many players in the forward line who were stronger and faster,” she continues. “Rather than competing with these players, I thought I was able to make them play in better conditions. I could play a role to connect with players [as a no.6], contribute to build-ups [of play] and change the rhythm of the team. I thought it was most suitable for me in this team.”

Skinner also remembers the crossroads chat, speaking to us in his Carrington office. “We had a conversation with Hini and I said: ‘Let’s look at something else. I think in this league, you’re a midfielder because you read the game better than anybody else. You have a fantastic first touch.’ 

“We had wide invasive forwards that were quicker, stronger and so there was no place for her to fit in that frontline. We tried her a couple of times, she wasn’t really getting in. In training, we always saw her technical quality. At the time we were transitioning Zel [Katie Zelem] away and other players from midfield, so we were like: ‘Right, the space is there, learn the game.’ And she has never looked back.”

SETTLING DOWN 

Hinata went on to start at the base of United’s midfield for a 4-0 win over Liverpool in December 2024 and would relinquish that position in just two of that league campaign’s remaining 13 games, as her all-round quality came to the fore in the new role.

The aforementioned triumph over Brighton saw a standout performance, as did the team’s first-ever away victory at Manchester City one week earlier, with her eye for a pass, developing tenacity in duels and intelligence to control a match all features that would see her become an important and popular member of the side that celebrated European qualification come May.

“To adopt that change of position is common, but the scale in which she’s progressed in the role isn’t common,” says Sanders. “The way she’s improved at such a speed, the way she’s taken on those new positions and adapted so quickly, I think is what’s been so impressive. Credit has to be given to Marc Skinner as well, with the way he’s been patient, allowed her to adapt to the position and given her that freedom to find her space within the team. When you’ve got a player like Miyazawa, who is so intelligent, you know eventually it’s going to click and that’s exactly what’s happened.”

A successful partnership with Dominique Janssen was also key to Miyazawa’s emergence in the midfield engine room. This season, Janssen has shifted into a more familiar centre-back role, but Hini’s progress has continued primarily next to another seasoned performer, in Julia Zigiotti, our summer signing from Bayern Munich.

“I really enjoy playing with Hini, she’s a brilliant player and very easy to play with,” Zigiotti said in a press conference earlier this term, sharing an insight into her midfield colleague. “We don’t have to talk that much on the pitch, we just look at each other and know what the other one is thinking. It’s been a real pleasure playing with her.”

Hini concurred when we spoke to her recently – her answer about Julia, strikingly similar to the one given by her team-mate, showing that the pair are not only in sync on the pitch.

“Playing with Julia is a lot of fun,” Miyazawa states, smiling as she talks about her colleague in Japanese. “Although I can’t speak English very well, I understand what Julia wants to do only with eye contact. We can play only by seeing each other’s position. It is very easy and fun to play with her. I have been building a good relationship with her, playing games with her. For the team, in terms of controlling games, I think we are playing our roles very well.”

November’s Manchester derby was the first time United lost when both had started this season, their 13th game together. They are two players getting the best out of each other and their chemistry is an emerging feature of Skinner’s current side.

“Zigi does the dirty work and Hini does the kind of breaking up [of the game], she gets called a pendulum because she just keeps the rhythm,” the boss explicates, describing two of the players he has available to select from his multiskilled midfield group. “Hini can link the backline, but she can also link play behind that and read the game. Because she reads the game, she controls transitions so much better. They’ve made a really great partnership in there.”

THE NEXT STEP 

It’s been a big 12 months or so for Hini. While establishing a place in our team, the midfielder from the city of Minamiashigara – an hour’s drive south of Tokyo – also won the SheBelieves Cup with Japan last February and celebrated her 50th senior international cap in October.

So, what’s next? “At United, playing in the Champions League and winning the league title are our aims,” she answers, when we ask about targets going forward. “In the national team, we have ambitions to perform our best and win the World Cup and the Olympics. But more importantly, personally, I’d like to be a player whom a lot of fans support and love.”

The last box is already ticked as we arrive in 2026. Hinata is a fan favourite in the stands here, and that shouldn’t change after a new contract was signed by the midfielder – a magic midfielder made for Manchester United. Not Modric, in her words, but Miyazawa.

“She’s humble and she fits a Manchester United spirit where it’s hard-working, but she adds flair and creativity, which is Manchester summed up for me,” the boss concludes. “She’s so important to us, the way we want to play, the way we see ourselves playing in the future and I’d say that she might not be able to speak English, but she speaks football. Whatever she’s learned, however she’s taken it on board, she’s always a step ahead. 

“She’s the type of player that’s a pleasure to coach, pleasure to see, pleasure to speak with. Everybody needs a Hini in their team. Thankfully we’ve got her.”

This story has been updated since first featuring inside the United Women matchday programme for last month's WSL game against Tottenham Hotspur.