I can’t quite recall specifics, but it sounded just like he wanted to spend some time away from it all, but in a nice placeAmazing context.
I've heard in many interviews Corica and Becker say something along the lines of "When Sakai fell in our laps" or "When Sakai's came across our desk, we just had to sign him". And I always wondered what they had meant by that. This makes perfect sense.
Did he happen to mention why he was specifically looking to come to New Zealand?
Interestingly, one of the other things he said was that Sakai was surprised to turn up to a few trainings, and they were doing heaps of running fitness. But not much skills work. To the point where he had to say something to the coaching staff to get them to do skills work. Think he was used to environments where having fitness is a basic professional expectation. Like, training isn’t to get fit