Masashi Nakayama, known affectionately as Gon, is a retired Japanese footballer who spent most of his career as the face of Jubilo Iwata. He came up through Fujieda Higashi High School and Tsukuba University before joining Jubilo in the Japan Football League—the corporate-sponsored predecessor to the modern J. League.

Making his J. League debut on March 11, 1994, Nakayama became a forward for Jubilo during their dominant early years. He was the kind of striker who scored at a clip of better than a goal every two games, making him the team's inspirational leader for over 15 years. Fans loved him partly for his talent but also because he wasn't afraid to speak his mind or crack jokes—a rarity among Japanese footballers at the time.

His most famous moment came at the 1998 World Cup in France, when he scored Japan's first-ever World Cup goal against Jamaica on June 26, 1998. That single strike ended up being the only goal Japan scored in the entire tournament. He finished his international career with 21 goals in 53 appearances, placing him eighth all-time for Japan.

Nakayama holds a couple of striking records. He set the world record for the fastest hat-trick at international level when he scored three goals in just three minutes and three seconds during an AFC Asian Cup qualifier against Brunei on February 16, 2000—beating the old record by 27 seconds. Even more impressively, he scored four hat-tricks in consecutive J. League matches in April 1998, netting 16 goals over those games. Guinness recognized both achievements.

Even as injuries piled up in his later years, Jubilo fans still reserved their loudest cheers for when Gon's name was announced at Yamaha Stadium. He played out the final stretch with Consadole Sapporo, retiring in December 2012 at age 45. By then, knee problems made continuing impossible, but he left behind a J. League record with 157 goals.