As the Japanese women’s soccer team walks away from the London Olympics with a respectable yet somewhat regrettable silver medal, many of them will return to a normal life.

For Homare Sawa, the national team’s top scorer and Fifa’s Woman Player of the Year, this means she can finally get back to her secondary claim to fame – sex symbol.  If there’s one thing international fame has brought to Sawa, it is an expanded legion of men who would like to spend some time together.

According to an acquaintance who spoke to Shukan Bunshun magazine, ever since her high school days, boys tended to gravitate towards the midfielder. Sawa herself confirms that more often than not, guys would approach her.

During her time playing in the US league, she was said to be deeply involved with an American boyfriend.  When asked by a reporter, “What would you do if you knew the world was going to blow up tomorrow?” Sawa replied “I would go to meet him [in America].”

With the recent ascension of Japan’s team in the World Cup, Sawa’s fame skyrocketed.  On Japanese TV programs, comedians and personalities one after another professed their love for her.

Internationally, a sports writer declared Sawa “a hit with men around the world” particularly in South America where a healthy number of soccer players said that they would love a chance to talk with the “Asain beauty Sawa.”

It’s uncertain what it is about Sawa that draws men like a magnet… that attracts men… a man magnet, see! I’m all flustered. I can’t even structure a proper simile.

Perhaps she has that legendary X factor scientists have long been trying to find.  Whatever it is, guys are wanting some of it.

According to Sawa’s acquaintance, “her dream is to settle down and get married.”  So as her soccer career settles down not just Japan, but the world waits to see who the one lucky guy is to land soccer’s Woman of the Year.

Source: Kon Katsu News (Japanese)