2018/22 Naomichi Ueda @ Cercle Brugge KSV (BEL)

Starts in the first match of the season against Standard Liege.

He is given the jersey No.5 this season.

 

Lost the game in the last 2 minutes plus overtime. 0-2. 90 minutes.

 

Looking forward to seeing him up his game to another level this season.

 

Yes, especially after his great and assuring performance in Copa America.

 

Played the entire match against Standard in a 0-2 loss. I don't know how he performed.

 

Started and played the full match against.

His team lost for the second match in a row. This time they lose 3-1 against Oostende, who defeated Anderlecht 0-1 away in their first match of the season.

 

Ueda is starting as usual for his team in the first league match of the season.

 

And they lost as usual.

 

Maybe he can consider moving to a slightly better team in the same league

 

He is not really that bad overall thus far imo.

 

His team recorded a surprising win against Miyoshi's Antwerp.

Ueda played the full match as usual, and Miyoshi didn't play.

One positive thing about Cercle Brugge's defence is that they are not conceding many goals in every match, they conceded one goal each in their opening two matches.

I don't know if this has something to do with Ueda, but it remains a good indication of the improved quality of the team's defence, especially given that they played against teams who are challenging for top ot the table places.

 

Noamichi Ueda was rock solid against Antwerp, shutting-down last season's Belgian league joint-top socorer Mbokani, and helping Cercle Brugge securing their first win of the 2020/2021 season.

Here are his statistics against Antwerp in matchday 2:

Duels won against Mbokani: 18/25.
Aerial challenges won: 17/24.
Tackles won: 3/3.
Clearances: 6.
Successful passes: 16/20.
Attempts on goal: 1.
Conceded possession: 0.

Comments to follow in the next post.

 

Ueda was man-marking Mbokani for most periods of the match, and knowoing what kind of a beast is Mbokani with a strong and dominating physique, this shall be seen as a great indication of how Ueda was great.

Ueda completly shut-down and neutralised Mbokani, forcing him to withdraw to the midfield or to the wing to evade Ueda's man-marking, and in the process this denied Antwerp from utilising their most lethal weapon.

Mobokani's approach of withdrawing to midfield was sucessful in creating the chance which Antwerp scored their opening goal from, as Ueda stayed in the backline and left the responsibility of marking Mbokani to the midfielders.

However, after Cercle Brugge conceded that first goal around the 30th minute, Ueda stepped up and started chasing Mbokani all the way to the midfield, and won every aerial and on the ground challenge from the 30th to the 65th minute.

In the 65th minute, after Ueda won another challenge against Mbokani, Mbokani was completely frustrated and punched Ueda on the face and the referee penalised him by a yellow-card (I think such offence shall merit a red-card given that it was an off-the-ball offence).

Apart from winning 2-3 challenges against Ueda in the first few minutes of the match, Mbokani didn't win any ball against Ueda untill the 70th minute, when he managed to escape Ueda's strict marking and had his first and only shot on goal.

After Cercle Brugge scored their equaliser, and then they scored the 2-1 goal in 86th minute, Antwerp tried their best to equalise and threw most of their players into Cercle Brugge's penalty area, Ueda managed to make few crucial clearances, including a clearance deep into the stoppage time, and he also stripped a ball from Mbokani's feet, when Mbokani would have a direct shot on goal.

It was Impressive performance against one of the top teams in the Belgian league, and against last season's joint-top scorer, who previously played in the English premier league, played for clubs like Monaco and Dynamo Kiev, won the Belgian legaue 5 times and the Ukrainian league once previously, and a regular scorer in UEFA champions league and Europa league.

 

Belgian league MD3: FT: KV KV Mechelen 2-3 Cercle Brugge.

It was a crazy and entertaining match to watch.

Unlike the match against Antwerp, when Antwetp depended heavily on long passes and physical play, especially long aerial passes towards Mbokani, which Ueda dealt with perfectly, Mechelen are playing more on the ground, using both vertical and horizontal passes, and penetrating from the centre and both flanks, which made Cercle Brugge's defence scrambling to defend in many times.

Ueda's shortcoming when defending balls on the ground has been exposed in this match, but fortunately he and his teammates outnumbered Mechelen players and dealt with the threat everytime.

Ueda -thankfully- was not the one to blame for the two goals Cercle Brugge conceded, as the first one was a result of a miss-pass from his CB partner Taravel, and the second was a result of a poor clearance from Taravel too.

One major positive from this match is that Ueda's passing from the backlline was almost 100% accurate, an improvement compared to his time at Kashima, even in the last match his passing accuracy was 80%, however, the unsuccessful passes were a result of his teammates reacting slowly to his long passes towards the opponent's attacking zone.

Considering that most of his forward passes were long passes, an area that was viewed as one of his two main shortcomings earlier in his career, this can be viewed as a remarkable improvement in his performance.

The appointment of Paul Clement, former Carlo Ancelotti's assitant at Chelsea, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, and PSG, and former manager of Swansea City and Derby County, might be one of the main reasons behind Ueda's and the whole team's improvement.

So far, Cercle Brugge, collected 6 points from 3 matches, compared to 23 points from 29 matches last season, which mean that they collected 25% of the points they collected last season with only 10% of the regular season elapsed.

This is a strong and promising start, considering that they were struggling to collect points in the previous two seasons and regularly losing by huge margins.

Who knows, perhaps this will be Ueda's breakthrough season in Europe, and hopefully he will be transferred to a bigger league or a bigger team in Belgium next season.

 

I think maybe a transfer to a better club within Belgium or elsewhere might be in consideration if he can keep up his form. My hope is maybe one day he can move to the likes of Switzerland's Fc Basel, etc and play there since the culture between the 2 countries are not that far apart.

Not surprised with his passing ability as he at times in Japan has played as a full back and pump in crosses to the forwards accurately. He can function as a full back as well imo.

 

On his way to France, to join Olympique Nimes, reportedly.

 

Hopefully this is true even though it is not certain as of yet.

If he really joins, will be interesting to see if he can at least reach Shoji's level at Ligue 1 back then.
Hopefully he has picked up a bit of French during his time thus far at Belgium.

 

He didn't play in most matches since October, was he injured?

 

Hope he does not do a Shoji after being good for a while and just go home.

 

https://www.nimes-olympique.com/naomichi-ueda-prete-au-nimes-olympique/

 

He among other players fall out of favour, just because they underperformed in 1 or 2 matches.

It seems Paul Clement (the head coach) panicked after an out-of-form run and started to try many alternatives and not sticking with a certain starting line-up, and such move backfired as the club dropped from midtable to the relegation zone.

Needless to say that Ueda is one of the main victims of Clement's premature decisions. He and the Kenyan CM Omola are now unwanted despite starting the sesson brightly.

In any case, I percieve this move as a positive for Ueda, as he already spent 2.5 years in Belgium and needs to test himself in a higher level. Especially with the chaos going on currently at Cercle Brugge.

 

It is already known and mentioned that it is a loan deal.