3.5M transfer to AA Gent. They're playing Conference League next season (if they quality that is). https://www.kaagent.be/nl/nieuws/09-06-2023/kaa-gent-verwelkomt-tsuyoshi-watanabe
It shows the huge development japanese football is making. Even the "smaller" players are going to make their way to europe and going to play for top teams in a little "smaller" leagues like belgium. And that comes not from nowhere. Its cause of good constant performances. And thats mean the quality in quantity is getting better which means a lot. For example you have the stars like Doan, Kamada, Endo, Kubo, Ito, Furuhashi, and so on who are playing great till good seasons and then you have the more unknown talents/players like Koki Saito, Kawabe, Watanabe who are also performing extremly well and are waiting for their chances. Even if they never make it to a real JNT player, they are improving the options for Moriyasu and increase the pressure on the stars. Great growing network.
That's the biggest takeaway from the last 3-4 years. Both countries are excellent as a landing spot, although Belgium is slightly better to get accustomed to Europe.
They won 5-1 this weekend in the conference league qualifiers. He started and scored a goal. 90 mins. Great start for him.
Impressive how good he develop since his arival at Europe. Reminds me of Endo, Tomiyasu. Would be cool if he continue like that and in 1-2 years join some serious side in England, Germany, Spain or Italy.
Make it three ! Daisuke Yokota arrives from Poland - Gornik Zabrze - on a 3 years deal for a 2 million€ transfer fee. He is a 23 years old offensive midfielder with 7 goals and 1 assist so far this season. He started his european journey at 18 yo, joining FSV Frankfurt (4th division) youth team, leaving a year after for FC Carl Zeiss Jena II (5th division). After being a free agent for 6 months he didn't give up and then joined Latvia and Valmeria FC where he first finished second, then helped his club to win the 1st division league with 8 goals and 10 assists. He played there alongside his fellow japanese Ryuga Nakamura (who then joined Armenia before coming back to Latvia) and Masaki Murata (now playing in Azerbaijan). His performances were remarked and Polish ambitious side Gornik Zabrze offered him a contract (38 yo Lukas Podolski is playing there since 2021). Having scored 7 goals and 1 assist in 18 games now opened him the doors of "big" western european football. I'm glad that his efforts payed off, glad to see all all those japanese players having the guts to try and face the unknown in order to pursue theirs dreams. It's such an inspiration, really. Good luck to all of them !
2nd goalie was already out for a long time, the 1st goalie got injured in that game. Schmidt made his debut in minute 15 in 0-1 loss in cup game on Tuesday and probably will be in goal the coming weeks.
Has been updated in the meanwhile but can’t take credit for that Only mods are able to update I assume. In the meantime Schmidt is doing great, honestly didn’t expect that after months of inactivity. The 1st goalie (Roef) has an hamstrings injury, he’ll be out for a while. But if Schmidt keeps performing well I think he’ll stay in goal even when Roef is back. Even though he has been at Gent for a while Roef never has been the undisputed no 1, this season he didn’t even start as no 1.