Hotaru Yamaguchi

is a Japanese football player. He played for the Japan national team.
Biography.
Yamaguchi was born in Nabari on October 6, 1990. He joined J2 League club Cerezo Osaka from their youth team in 2009. Cerezo was promoted to J1 League from 2010. He played many matches as defensive midfielder from 2011. In 2013, he played all 34 matches and was selected Best Eleven award. However Cerezo was relegated to J2 end of the 2014 season. In January 2016, he moved to German Bundesliga club Hannover. However he could not play many matches and Hannover was relegated to 2. Bundesliga end of the 2015/16 season. In summer 2016, he returned to Cerezo and Cerezo was promoted to J1 end of the 2016 season. In 2017, Cerezo won the champions in the J.League Cup and Emperor's Cup. He was also selected Best Eleven award. In 2019, he moved to Vissel Kobe. Vissel won the champions in the 2019 Emperor's Cup which is first major title in the club history.
In July 2012, Yamaguchi was selected the Japan U-23 national team for 2012 Summer Olympics. He played all 6 matches as defensive midfielder and Japan won the 4th place. In July 2013, he was selected the Japan national team for 2013 East Asian Cup. At this tournament, he debuted against China on July 21. In 2014, he was selected Japan for 2014 World Cup and played all 3 matches. In 2018, he also played at 2018 World Cup and Japan qualified to the knockout stage.
Statistics.
293||23||21||5||22||2||21||1||357||31
6||0||0||0||colspan="2"|-||colspan="2"|-||6||0
299||23||21||5||22||2||21||1||363||31
!Total||48||3